Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News – Feb. 18, 2014, JSC Today and More Sad news --passing of Harold Ferrese

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: February 18, 2014 11:14:13 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News – Feb. 18, 2014, JSC Today and More Sad news --passing of Harold Ferrese

Happy second Monday of the week.   Hope all had a good President's day! Below is the obit for Marion Schellhase with his memorial service details. Continue to keep his family in your thoughts and prayers at this sad time of loss.

More Sad News.:

Also,,,we received more sad news this morning  --- Harold Ferrese passed away this morning.  Prayers go out to his family during this sad time of loss.   Will share service details as they become available.

 

Guest Book

Be the first to share your memories or express your condolences in the Guest Book for Marion Schellhase.

View Sign

Marion Wallis Schellhase, 84, of League City, TX passed away on Feb. 14, 2014. A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, February 22, 2014 at 10:00 AM at Crowder Funeral Home-Webster. Interment at Houston National Cemetery will be held at later date.

Published in Houston Chronicle on Feb. 19, 2014

 

________________________________________

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                    JSC TODAY CATEGORIES

1.            Headlines

-  NASA Patent Agreements to Help Medical Development

-  Satellite Accumulation Area for Waste

2.            Organizations/Social

-  7th Annual NASA Golf Tourney - Spots Filling Fast

-  JSC Wildlife/Plant Life Nature Hike - Today!

-  JSC NMA Generation Panel Luncheon

-  Tomorrow: The Next Generation

-  T-Mobile in Building 3 Café Tomorrow

3.            Jobs and Training

-  Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab - Feb. 19

-  Electronic Document System (EDS) 2.0

-  Job Opportunities

4.            Community

-  Are You a Science or Techie Nerd? You're in Demand

Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness

 

 

   Headlines

1.            NASA Patent Agreements to Help Medical Development

In furthering the JSC 2.0 goal to Expand Relevance to Life on Earth, NASA has recently signed two patent license agreements with GRoK Technologies LLC of Houston to assist in the development of novel biotech methods that could have numerous applications on Earth.

While NASA is interested in developing the technology to potentially regenerate bone and muscle to counter the adverse effects of long spaceflights, the same patented technologies could assist GRoK to develop ground-breaking human tissue models for both consumer product research and medical device communities.

For more details, the complete news release can be found here.

Also, see this article and this one.

For information on licensing JSC Technologies, click here.

Holly Kurth x32951

 

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2.            Satellite Accumulation Area for Waste

 

Keeping an up-to-date and tidy Satellite Accumulation Area (SAA) for industrial solid waste is an easy way to meet regulatory waste-generation requirements and support center sustainability goals. Proper SAA management includes the following:

1.            Ensuring the SAA is clean and in working order;

2.            Clearly marking the boundaries of the SAA with paint or tape and posting proper signs;

3.            Properly labeling your containers;

4.            Segregating different types of waste and using the correct type of collection container;

5.            Completely closing containers when you are not adding waste;

6.            Not overfilling waste containers; and

7.            Only accumulating waste in an SAA for less than six months (three months for lab waste).

If you have questions about your SAA, or if you need an SAA for wastes in your area, please contact the JSC Environmental Office.

JSC Environmental Office x36207 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/ja/ja13/iahw.cfm

 

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   Organizations/Social

1.            7th Annual NASA Golf Tourney - Spots Filling Fast

Golfers, register your spot today!

The Seventh Annual NASA Golf Tournament will be the biggest and best one yet! Due to popular demand, the tournament now has TWO dates for you to choose from.

Tournament Date 1:

o             Thursday, April 10

o             8 a.m. shotgun start

o             Registration - $500 per team (price increases March 1)

o             Magnolia Creek Golf Club

-- OR --

Tournament Date 2:

o             Friday, April 11 (ALMOST FULL)

o             8 a.m. shotgun start

o             Registration - $540 per team (price increases March 1)

o             Magnolia Creek Golf Club

The silent auction will be back for BOTH days.

Registration fee includes green fees, driving range, 2014 NASA golf polo, breakfast bar, barbecue lunch, participant bag, silent auction entry, drink tickets, tournament awards, door prizes and more.

Registration prices increase after FRIDAY, FEB. 28, and spots are filling very fast. Register your team today!

Event Date: Thursday, April 10, 2014   Event Start Time:6:30 AM   Event End Time:3:00 PM

Event Location: Magnolia Creek Golf Club

 

Add to Calendar

 

Steve Schade x30304 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/special-events/golf-tournament

 

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2.            JSC Wildlife/Plant Life Nature Hike - Today!

Join us today at noon as JSC Wildlife Biologist Matt Strausser provides a nature hike detailing the native plant species and wildlife on-site, invasive species and mitigation efforts. The hike will begin on the northwest section of the jogging trail. Parking is available at the north end of the 300 area, near Building 338. The walk will be about a half mile or longer. Look for the people standing around.

Hope to see you there!

Event Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM

Event Location: North end of 300 Area, near B338

 

Add to Calendar

 

Lynn Lefebvre x36020

 

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3.            JSC NMA Generation Panel Luncheon

Don't miss out on this great opportunity to hear about "Harnessing the Best of Each Generation at JSC." Please join us for this month's JSC National Management Association (NMA) chapter luncheon with our own JSC Generation Panel.

When: Tuesday, Feb. 25

Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom

Cost for members: FREE

Cost for non-members: $20

Attendees can select from three great menu options:

o             Grilled Salmon

o             Vegetable Lasagna

o             Parmesan Chicken

Desserts include double chocolate mousse cake and Italian cream cake.

RSVPs are required by 3 p.m. TOMORROW, Feb. 19, so RSVP now!

Event Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2014   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM

Event Location: Alamo Ballroom at the Gilruth

 

Add to Calendar

 

Leslie N. Smith x40590 http://www.jscnma.com/Events

 

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4.            Tomorrow: The Next Generation

Have you ever wanted FREE PIZZA and DRINKS? How about getting together with colleagues to discuss your job and how to make the NASA experience better?

Then you'll definitely enjoy the Emerge Employee Resource Group's monthly meeting tomorrow. This is a great time to learn more about Emerge's efforts and how you can get involved!

Emerge is geared toward the next generation of employees, but anyone and everyone is welcome regardless of age or years of service.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Event Date: Wednesday, February 19, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM

Event Location: Bldg 12/152

 

Add to Calendar

 

Elena C. Buhay 281-792-7976 https://collaboration.ndc.nasa.gov/iierg/emerge/SitePages/Home.aspx

 

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5.            T-Mobile in Building 3 Café Tomorrow

Stop by the T-Mobile table at the Building 3 café tomorrow, Feb. 19, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. for information on applying your 15 percent NASA employee and contractor discount on their no-contract Simple Choice plans with unlimited talk, text and Web. T-Mobile's Employee Advantage team will also be offering details on how to get a $50 credit for each new line activated on both new and existing accounts. If you can't stop be there in person on Feb. 19, just email for details. Also, learn about new international features that let you text and use data for no extra charge while traveling in more than 100 countries!

Shelly Haralson x39168 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/special-events/on-site-employe...

 

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   Jobs and Training

1.            Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab - Feb. 19

Do you need some hands-on, personal help with FedTraveler.com? Join the Business Systems and Process Improvement Office for an Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab tomorrow, Feb. 19, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 12, Room 142. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through Extended TDY travel processes and learn more about using FedTraveler during this informal workshop. Bring your current travel documents or specific questions that you have about the system and join us for some hands-on, in-person help with FedTraveler. If you'd like to sign up for this Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab, please log into SATERN and register. For additional information, contact Judy Seier at x32771.

To register in SATERN, please click on this SATERN direct link: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...

GIina Clenney x39851

 

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2.            Electronic Document System (EDS) 2.0

The EDS 2.0 document type Task Performance Sheet (TPS) is preparing for centerwide deployment. This intuitive and simple system will enable TPS's to be generated and approved electronically. If you are a frequent user of the JSC Form 1225, please sign up for one of the scheduled training sessions in SATERN.

Course Name: EDS Electronic Task Performance Sheet (eTPS) Training

Course Number: JSC-NT-SAIC-EDS

Two sessions are offered on the following days from 9 to 11 a.m. and 1 to 3 p.m.

o             Feb. 25

o             Feb. 26

o             March 11

o             March 12

o             March 25

o             March 26

Regina Senegal x32686

 

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3.            Job Opportunities

Where do I find job opportunities?

Both internal Competitive Placement Plan and external JSC job announcements are posted on the Human Resources (HR) Portal and USAJOBS website. Through the HR portal, civil servants can view summaries of all the agency jobs that are currently open at: https://hr.nasa.gov/portal/server.pt/community/employees_home/239/job_opportu...

To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies, please call your HR representative.

Brandy Braunsdorf x30476

 

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   Community

1.            Are You a Science or Techie Nerd? You're in Demand

Geek out and show kids how cool science or technology can be! The Clear Creek Independent School District is having their district-wide Science Night for intermediate schools on Thursday, Feb. 27, from 6 to 10 p.m. They are looking for folks to give demos or have hands-on activities to showing the fun side of science. Registration is needed TODAY, Feb. 18.

The clock is ticking, so visit V-CORPs NOW to sign up! Questions? Contact your friendly V-CORPs administrator.

V-CORPs 281-792-5859 http://nasajsc.force.com/vcorps

 

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JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles.

Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters.

 

 

 

 

NASA and Human Spaceflight News

Tuesday – Feb. 18, 2014

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: Embedded in this weekend's Winter Olympics coverage, Tom Brokaw had a program called Space Race. The program recalls the Apollo Soyuz Test Program, and consists of interviews of Tom Stafford, Jim Lovell, John Glenn and Alexei Leonov, and current ISS crewmember Rick Mastracchio.  View the program here.

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Supply ship departs space station after 5 weeks

Marcia Dunn – Associated Press

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—The International Space Station has one less capsule and a lot less trash. A commercial cargo ship ended its five-week visit Tuesday morning. NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins used the space station's big robot arm to release the capsule, called Cygnus, as the orbiting lab sailed 260 miles above the South Atlantic. Cygnus is filled with garbage and will burn up Wednesday when it plunges through the atmosphere, over the Pacific.

 

Examining the impact of the Space Race (VIDEO)

NBC

 

NBC News special correspondent Tom Brokaw chronicles the Cold War space race that took place during the 1950s, 60s and 70s between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, the Cold War tension fueled the passion behind the 'Miracle on Ice' at the Lake Placid Games. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

How NASA's plan to capture an asteroid is crucial to human survival

Jesus Diaz – Gizmodo

 

NASA is committed to grab an asteroid and put it into lunar orbit in the next decade, using a robotic system to put a 40-foot (12-meter) rock into a space shopping bag, and then tow it to the Moon. This apparently useless mission is actually crucial to the survival of humankind. The space agency calls it the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The image above shows how NASA envisions one of the missions after capture: It will send astronauts to the asteroid in an Orion spacecraft to take samples and return them to Earth. The rings on the bag are hooks for the astronauts to move safely across the asteroid's surface.

 

USM research project headed for ISS

Hattiesburg American

 

University of Southern Mississippi Professor Scott Milroy is not ready to prove life exists on Mars. However, he is one giant leap closer to discovering whether or not a living organism could survive on the Red Planet. Milroy recently learned that his NASA-funded "Pioneering Mars" project has been selected for payload integration and flight aboard the International Space Station. Milroy's project is one of only two chosen from the NASA ISS National Laboratory Education Project for transport to the ISS sometime in 2015.

 

Monster asteroid whizzes by Earth

Elizabeth Weise – USA Today

 

Earth had a close encounter Monday evening as an asteroid as big as three football fields whizzed by at 27,000 mph. The asteroid was never considered a threat. The closest it came to Earth was about 2 million miles.

 

NASA finally solves mystery of 'jelly doughnut' on Mars

Associated Press

 

After weeks of bewildered speculation, scientists at NASA have determined that the infamous 'jelly doughnut,' rock spotted by the agency's Opportunity Mars rover is a actually piece of a larger rock broken and moved by one of the rover's wheels. Scientists have solved the mystery of the "jelly doughnut" rock on Mars that appeared to come out of nowhere. NASA said Friday that a wheel of the rover Opportunity broke it off a larger rock and then kicked it into the field of view.

 

What NASA Is For: Straight From the Panda's Mouth

Charles Seife – Huffington Post (BLOG)

 

A furious panda is a thing to behold. Ordinarily, a panda seems to be superlatively peaceful, diffidently munching bamboo. But when it gets angry, it betrays its true nature -- it's fundamentally a carnivore trying to play itself off as a herbivore. And failing. Last week, in Slate, I argued that NASA, like a panda, is maladapted and flirting with extinction as a result. (Panda bashing happens to be a proud Slate tradition.) The argument triggered outrage. Within hours, fueled by social media, the defense of NASA echoed around the nation, even reaching the White House. It was the anger of a panda -- and contrary to what NASA aficionados believe, their response confirms just how screwed-up the agency really is. The fundamental problem isn't terribly hard to understand.

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Supply ship departs space station after 5 weeks

Marcia Dunn – Associated Press

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—The International Space Station has one less capsule and a lot less trash.

 

A commercial cargo ship ended its five-week visit Tuesday morning. NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins used the space station's big robot arm to release the capsule, called Cygnus, as the orbiting lab sailed 260 miles above the South Atlantic.

 

Cygnus is filled with garbage and will burn up Wednesday when it plunges through the atmosphere, over the Pacific.

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. launched the capsule last month from Virginia under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. The Cygnus delivered 3,000 pounds of goods, including belated Christmas gifts for the six-man crew and hundreds of ants for a student experiment.

 

The ants are still aboard the space station. They'll return to Earth aboard another company's cargo ship, the SpaceX Dragon.

 

SpaceX—or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., based in Southern California—will launch its next Dragon from Cape Canaveral on March 16 with a fresh load of supplies.

 

NASA is paying Orbital Sciences and SpaceX to keep the space station stocked. Russia, Japan and Europe also take turns making deliveries.

 

The SpaceX Dragon is the only craft capable of safely returning a pile of items, now that NASA's space shuttles are retired. The Russian Soyuz crew capsule has just enough room for three astronauts and a few odds and ends.

 

A handful of American companies, including SpaceX, are working to develop craft to carry space station crews. Until that happens, NASA must continue to buy Soyuz seats for its astronauts.

 

Americans have not launched from U.S. soil since the last shuttle flight in 2011. NASA expects it will be 2017 before U.S. astronauts rocket into orbit from their homeland.

 

Examining the impact of the Space Race (VIDEO)

NBC

 

NBC News special correspondent Tom Brokaw chronicles the Cold War space race that took place during the 1950s, 60s and 70s between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, the Cold War tension fueled the passion behind the 'Miracle on Ice' at the Lake Placid Games. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

How NASA's plan to capture an asteroid is crucial to human survival

Jesus Diaz – Gizmodo

 

 

NASA is committed to grab an asteroid and put it into lunar orbit in the next decade, using a robotic system to put a 40-foot (12-meter) rock into a space shopping bag, and then tow it to the Moon. This apparently useless mission is actually crucial to the survival of humankind.

 

The space agency calls it the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The image above shows how NASA envisions one of the missions after capture: It will send astronauts to the asteroid in an Orion spacecraft to take samples and return them to Earth. The rings on the bag are hooks for the astronauts to move safely across the asteroid's surface.

 

Two paths

 

NASA has two ideas in mind to capture the asteroid. The first is to "retrieve a large, boulder-like mass from a larger asteroid and return it" to lunar orbit. Imagine it: Send robotic ship to rendezvous with an asteroid, have it remove a chunk that is about 40 feet in diameter, put it inside a bag, and tow it to the Moon. It seems awfully hard and dangerous.

 

The easier alternative is to "capture and redirect an entire very small asteroid." There's only one problem with this, according to Paul Chodas, a senior scientist at JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office:

 

There are hundreds of millions of objects out there in this size range, but they are small and don't reflect a lot of sunlight, so they can be hard to spot. The best time to discover them is when they are brightest, when they are close to Earth.

 

NASA is already working to identify targets for ARM. The international community has small teams of astronomers dedicated to spot these small objects in the sky using optical telescopes. They send their findings to a computer at the Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

 

This computer calculates their orbit and size, adding them to a database. Another automated system constantly scans this database for potential candidates, sending an email with the subject line "New ARM Candidate" every time it finds one. According to Chodas this "has happened several dozen times since we implemented the system in March of 2013."

 

With that data in hand, Chodas contacts NASA's Deep Space Network station at Goldstone, California, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and the Infrared Telescope Facility in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Combining these stations, scientists can obtain precise "size and rotation information, and at times, even generating detailed images of an asteroid's surface" as well as "wealth of detailed data on spectral type, reflectivity and expected composition." This is when the scientists made their final assessment and put the asteroid in the target list.

 

The list is way too short so far. With the current budget, NASA can only get about two ARM targets per year.

Why this is important for all of us

 

According to NASA, the agency has a tiny "$20 million per year in the search for potentially hazardous asteroids through the Near Earth Object Observation Program." They added $105 million to ARM in 2014 and it is actively working with other companies and organizations to accelerate the program as much as possible.

 

It's a pathetic budget, giving how important this is to the long term survival of humankind. It may sound dramatic, but the NEO and ARM programs are working both to protect us and to provide a path of expansion out of our resource-limited planet. The only path available, in fact.

 

So far, astronomers around the world have identified 10,713 known near-Earth objects. Obvisouly, the Near-Earth Object Program Office is not only identifying potential prey for the ARM hunters. It's the main part of NASA's planetary defense work.

 

Whatever route it chooses for ARM, NASA says that it will send "astronauts aboard an Orion spacecraft [to] study the redirected asteroid mass in the vicinity of the moon and bring back samples." Studying these asteroids will provide critical information for planetary defense too.

 

It will give us information about the composition and structure of these space bodies, which is crucial to understand the origin of the solar system, the role of asteroids in the formation of life, and, potentially, provide with important information about how to deflect potential threats like the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia.

 

USM research project headed for ISS

Hattiesburg American

 

University of Southern Mississippi Professor Scott Milroy is not ready to prove life exists on Mars. However, he is one giant leap closer to discovering whether or not a living organism could survive on the Red Planet.

 

Milroy recently learned that his NASA-funded "Pioneering Mars" project has been selected for payload integration and flight aboard the International Space Station. Milroy's project is one of only two chosen from the NASA ISS National Laboratory Education Project for transport to the ISS sometime in 2015.

 

"While USM is well-known regionally as a leader in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and research, it is important that the capabilities and accomplishments of our University reach a wider national audience," said Milroy, associate professor of Marine Science at Southern Miss. "The results from our experiments, both on the ground and aboard the ISS, are designed to engage a new generation of young scientists and engineers as active research partners."

 

Milroy and his colleagues await further federal funding to maintain the research protocol associated with the project. But he has already cleared one major hurdle in the quest to learn more about our solar system.

 

"The search for life beyond Earth is a fundamental question of the 'uniqueness' of Earth in the cosmos," said Milroy. "While the search for life on Mars has eluded us thus far, with our Pioneering Mars project, we intended to explore the possibility of extra-terrestrial life from a different perspective.

 

"Instead of looking for life which may have existed on Mars, we are investigating the possibility that Mars could support life, even if it is transported from Earth. The mere notion that an Earth organism could survive on the surface of Mars drives home the point that the Martian surface could sustain life."

 

Milroy's project was one of five ISS NLEP projects nationwide that NASA funded approximately 18 months ago, providing hands-on science and engineering opportunities to high school students. His experiments focus on an attempt to grow a blue-green algae – known as cyanobacteria – in incubation chambers at the Southern Miss Gulf Park campus in Long Beach.

 

Milroy notes that while many of the physical, chemical, and climatic conditions of Mars can be simulated in an Earth-bound laboratory, the capability to maintain living cyanobacterial cultures in reduced gravity conditions can only be explored on the ISS.

 

Other potential benefits from the project include:

 

Helping define the "edges" of habitability on Mars, which could help inform what sort of measurements should be taken in future missions to Mars.Determining what kinds of equipment/sensors should be developed in the search for life on Mars.Suggesting how future greenhouses should be built to maintain photosynthetic production, if Mars is to be colonized by human explorers in the future.

 

"The research is additionally valuable to NASA in that the successful culture of photosynthetic organisms in low-temperature, low-light, and reduced-gravity conditions would have far-reach implications for providing potential food sources, and renewable oxygen gas producers/carbon dioxide scrubbers for long-duration space flights," said Milroy.

 

Monster asteroid whizzes by Earth

Elizabeth Weise – USA Today

 

Earth had a close encounter Monday evening as an asteroid as big as three football fields whizzed by at 27,000 mph.

 

The asteroid was never considered a threat. The closest it came to Earth was about 2 million miles.

 

Dubbed 2000 EM26, it was a rocky body about 885 feet in diameter

 

The asteroid's pass was streamed by the astronomy site Slooh.com.

 

The images the site showed came from a telescope located in Dubai. They showed a dark night sky filled with stars but with no asteroid visible.

 

The technical team at Slooh.com spent Monday night reviewing the images but were "not seeing a lot of detail," said technical director Patrick Paolucci.

 

Astronomers knew the asteroid would be "a little fainter than Pluto" said Slooh astronomer Bob Berman.

 

Some watching and commenting on Twitter complained the images were boring.

 

Others noted that boring was a good outcome. Having an asteroid hit the Earth, while "interesting," would have been a very bad outcome, they said.

 

One watcher commented, "Guys... this is astronomy, not a Hollywood film."

 

Asteroids are small rocky planetoids that revolve around the sun but are too small to be considered planets.

 

2000 EM26 was discovered March 5, 2000.

 

The asteroid's passage comes a year and two days after an asteroid ripped through the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia. That asteroid damaged thousands of buildings and was felt over a very wide area. It was about 65 feet across.

 

NASA finally solves mystery of 'jelly doughnut' on Mars

Associated Press

 

After weeks of bewildered speculation, scientists at NASA have determined that the infamous 'jelly doughnut,' rock spotted by the agency's Opportunity Mars rover is a actually piece of a larger rock broken and moved by one of the rover's wheels.

 

Scientists have solved the mystery of the "jelly doughnut" rock on Mars that appeared to come out of nowhere.

 

NASA said Friday that a wheel of the rover Opportunity broke it off a larger rock and then kicked it into the field of view.

 

The Internet was abuzz last month when the space agency released side-by-side images of the same patch of ground. Only one image showed the rock, which was white around the outside and dark red in the middle, and less than 2 inches (5.08 centimeters) wide.

 

Scientists had suspected that one of Opportunity's wheels kicked the rock as it drove. They received confirmation after analyzing recent images of the original piece of rock.

 

Opportunity recently celebrated 10 years on Mars. Its twin Spirit stopped communicating in 2010.

 

What NASA Is For: Straight From the Panda's Mouth

Charles Seife – Huffington Post (BLOG)

 

A furious panda is a thing to behold.

 

Ordinarily, a panda seems to be superlatively peaceful, diffidently munching bamboo. But when it gets angry, it betrays its true nature -- it's fundamentally a carnivore trying to play itself off as a herbivore. And failing.

 

Last week, in Slate, I argued that NASA, like a panda, is maladapted and flirting with extinction as a result. (Panda bashing happens to be a proud Slate tradition.) The argument triggered outrage. Within hours, fueled by social media, the defense of NASA echoed around the nation, even reaching the White House. It was the anger of a panda -- and contrary to what NASA aficionados believe, their response confirms just how screwed-up the agency really is.

 

The fundamental problem isn't terribly hard to understand. The lion's share of NASA's budget -- and reputation -- is for launching people into space. This was sustainable when we were in a no-holds-barred race with the Soviets, but the moment Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the Moon, that race was over. Any human spaceflight beyond that (including the remaining Apollo missions, which started being scuttled one by one less than a year after the Eagle touched down) is anticlimax. So it will remain until a manned Mars mission becomes technologically and budgetarily feasible.

 

This left NASA with a dilemma. What NASA does really well -- remote missions -- at best attract some passing attention from the public (and from Congress) and quickly fade from public consciousness, even though they've resulted in fundamental advances in planetary science, astronomy, cosmology, physics, and Earth science. NASA's glory and continued success, on the other hand, comes almost entirely from the hurling-people-in-tin-cans-into-the-void trick, which hasn't had any real purpose since the early 1970s.

 

In other words, there's a gap between perception and reality, between what NASA does that's really worthwhile and what NASA perceives it must do to maintain its reputation and its budget. The last four decades of NASA's history are an attempt to bridge that gap with sleight of hand, to draw our attention away from that internal contradiction.

 

It does so by pretending that its astronauts are doing crucial scientific experiments while puttering around in low-Earth orbit. Despite NASA's incessant cooing over its "world-class" scientific work in space, the research on board the shuttle and the International Space Station has almost uniformly been of minimal importance. Science-wise, human spaceflight compares incredibly unfavorably on a dollar-for-dollar basis with even a fiscally bloated and physically crippled unmanned craft. Even a single lean, mean, successful project like Mars Pathfinder, which cost about $200 million (maybe $300 to $350 million in today's dollars), arguably yielded more for science than the entire multi-hundred-billion-dollar post-Apollo human spaceflight program. (Making matters worse, astronaut-run research has not just come at extraordinary fiscal expense but at grave human expense as well. As I point out in the Slate article, NASA has killed roughly 4 percent of the people it has sent into space -- yes, killed, through negligence and mismanagement.)

 

NASA also has had a few embarrassing episodes where it hyped bad terrestrial science as, well, ham-handed attempts to fill the gap by inflating the importance of a new field: astrobiology. (The term "astrobiology" is telling. "Astro" and "biology" are, at the moment, mutually exclusive; where you have one, you simply don't have the other. Hopefully, that will someday change and give the field a reason for its name.)

 

This sleight of hand is the core of the problem. Hype doesn't fill the gap between perception and reality, though, and the mismatch is growing bigger each year as remote technology improves, and as budgets tighten. Unless the agency can either find a human spaceflight mission that's worth the effort, expense, and danger or, better yet, realign its priorities so that it no longer has to dissemble about the value of more than half of the work that it does, then NASA is in danger. In short, NASA must figure out what it's really for.

 

This argument paints an unflattering picture of NASA, to be sure, and the reaction from NASA fans was as quick and fierce as a mother panda defending her cubs. Within a few hours, a NASA love-fest developed on Twitter, using the hashtag #WhatisNASAfor, to try to answer the question -- or at least prove that it's silly and presumptuous to ask it. Space fans, both civilian and insiders, joined in, and soon so did the government, including NASA itself.

 

So what does NASA think it's for? In 140 characters, how does America's space agency justify its existence? Here it is, straight from the panda's mouth:

 

Spinoffs. Yes, really.

 

Any time you give a group of smart people lots of money to work together on technological problems, you're going to get unexpected discoveries and side benefits. Whether you're working on military systems, high-energy physics, digital imaging, or any other big high-tech problems, there will be spinoffs. But in all the world, it seems that only NASA thinks that spinoffs are a raison d'être rather than a natural consequence of doing something else well. Spinoffs (and new technology), especially medical spinoffs, figure prominently in the #WhatisNASAfor thread. Of course, if developing new medical technology is what NASA is for, that's a valid argument, but we should probably incorporate the agency into the Department of Health and Human Services.

 

Perhaps someone even higher up in government had a better idea. Luckily, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy joined in too:

 

It's a nice story, and the general theme of inspiring students and creating future STEM majors was also a salient theme in the #WhatisNASAfor thread. On the other hand, it's pretty clear that in no way do the educational benefits justify the $2.5-billion expense of the Curiosity mission. Don't misunderstand: Curiosity was well worth the money, not because it makes a great story for kids but because it's producing interesting planetary science. The educational value is a side benefit. In other words, NASA's educational value is fundamentally another kind of spinoff that follows directly from doing interesting things in space. And the vast majority of interesting things in space are done by robots, not humans. The infinite variations of water floating in space are cute, but it's a Mars panorama or a view of Saturn or even of the Sun that will trigger real awe -- and inspiration.

 

A few other NASA-related entities also chimed in; NASA's Launch Services Program at Cape Kennedy tweeted about "launching across our solar system," while NASA's Stennis Space Center used the opportunity to plug NASA's PR effort.

 

Largely missing was NASA's elephant in the room: its $100 to $200 billion-plus flagship, the International Space Station. As far as I can tell, there were only two governmental or official contributions that even mentioned the ISS. The first was CASIS, the organization that manages the International Space Station's laboratory facilities. It came out swinging, offering perhaps the only official tweet that attempted directly to refute the argument made in Slate.

 

The other was ISS Research, NASA's mouthpiece for scientific research aboard the station. How is it contributing to NASA's purpose?

 

Spinoffs. Sigh.

 

The civilian contributions to #WhatisNASAfor tended to hit on similar themes.

 

Inspiration, education, tech spinoffs, and the sheer coolness of some of NASA's missions? Wonderful, but not ends in themselves. The need to escape the confines of the Earth, and the manifest destiny of colonizing space? After Apollo, this became unattainable in any meaningful way for quite a while to come.

 

What's left is science -- and science is where NASA's greatest achievements lie. NASA spacecraft are helping us answer some of the biggest questions in the universe. (Heck, I wrote an entire book describing a revolution in cosmology sparked, in part, by NASA programs like Hubble, WMAP, and COBE.) But that drive is fundamentally incompatible with the agency's perceived need to hype bad science and trying to convince the world that its astronautic boondoggles are producing world-class scientific achievements.

 

That's NASA's dilemma in a nutshell: despite all the agency has done, despite all it has to offer, so long as human spaceflight is at the core of NASA's existence, it will never evolve beyond a faint echo of its prior self.

END

 

More detailed space news can be found at:

 

http://spacetoday.net/