News Summaries for December 9

Ready for a Trip that is Out of This World? Call Her. (Source: Jacksonville Times-Union)
Jacksonville-area travel consultant Suzanne Perritt has been selected as one of 45 agents nationwide to become an "Accredited Space Agent" for Virgin Galactic's suborbital space flights. She is associated with Trips in the Village, a member of Virtuoso, the worldwide network of travel specialists selected by Virgin Galactic as its travel representatives for North America. Flights will begin in New Mexico in 2008, where the spaceship will be taken to 50,000 feet by a carrier aircraft. The spaceship then leaves the carrier and climbs, reaching the speed of sound in 10 seconds, four times that in less than 30 seconds. At an altitude of about 75 miles, the engine shuts down for a period of silence and weightlessness. The ship returns for a normal runway landing. Space tourists will need patience and a refundable $20,000 deposit on the $200,000 ticket for a ride on a six-passenger flight. For that they will receive three days of astronaut training and G-force acclimatization, followed by a two-hour spaceflight, plus major bragging rights.

Mending Fences Between Exploration and Science (Source: Space.com)
NASA’s new goal of establishing a 21st century Moon base will require bridge building while mending fences between space scientists and exploration technologists. Space agency planners foresee a step-by-step, module by module buildup of a lunar outpost, one that starts with four-person crews making several seven-day visits to the Moon. That initial encampment will later be fortified by power supplies, rovers and additional housing. The first lunar live-in mission would begin by 2020, followed by 180-day stayovers to prep for journeys to Mars.

As space engineers hammer out a proposed lunar architecture, the call is coming for lunar scientists to aid in picking the best site for a base. Scientific direction is also needed to define what human explorers can uniquely do on the Moon. Also, there’s need for scientists to help catalog and evaluate how best to utilize lunar resources so explorers can “live off the land” in support of long-term visits to the Moon. Visit http://space.com/news/061209_moon_science.html to view the article.

NASA Crushes Lunar Real Estate Industry (Source: The Register)
NASA has confirmed its moon base will not illegally occupy other people's land. The news deals a crushing blow to the dreams of thousands of idiots, who coughed the cash for their very own patch of dusty countryside on the moon. NASA announced earlier this week it would start building a permanent lunar outpost in 2020. A NASA spokesman told us: "Property rights on the moon are governed by the United Nations. Those are all just frauds."

It transpires the moon comes under the same jurisdiction as international waters. In 2004 the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Space Law aimed to clear up confusion over the legal status of land flogging operations. It said in a statement: "The sellers of such deeds are unable to acquire legal title to their claims. Accordingly, the deeds they sell have no legal value or significance, and convey no recognized rights whatsoever."

NASA Official Questions Agency’s Focus on the Shuttle (Source: New York Times)
NASA’s administrator, Michael D. Griffin, says the current period of space exploration will come to be seen as a mistake. He has criticized past policy decisions that guided the agency’s emphasis on the shuttle program. “Viewed from the point of history several decades out,” he said in an interview, “the period where the United States retreated from the Moon and quite deliberately focused only on low Earth orbit will be seen, to me, a mistake.”

It has put him in a delicate situation, as he has shifted NASA financing to the Moon initiative, while moving to complete the space station and shut down the shuttle program by 2010, and cutting back on its science activities. And in doing so, he has occasionally expressed doubts about the wisdom underlying the nation’s decision to build the shuttle and the station. Visit http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/science/space/09nasa.html?_r=2&ref=science&oref=slogin&oref=slogin to view the article.

Shuttle Needs to Launch Saturday for Wallops Island go Monday (Source: Virginian-Pilot)
As of Friday evening, the 7 a.m. launch of the Air Force Minotaur I was on. However, NASA Wallops also assists the Kennedy Space Center on shuttle launches, providing radar support and transmitting data between the shuttle and the space center. The instrumentation at Wallops needed to support the shuttle has to be set up and locked nearly two days before its launch. NASA also limits the hours employees can work without a break.

If the shuttle launches tonight, as now hoped, the Minotaur I will go up from Wallops at 7 a.m. Monday as scheduled - as long as the forecast for clear skies and light winds holds. But if the shuttle launch gets pushed to Sunday or Monday night, the Wallops rocket will be delayed. If the shuttle launch goes to Tuesday night or beyond, Kremer said, the Minotaur I should go up as scheduled.