News Summaries for January 17

Future Workforce Must Be Cultivated Now for Aerospace Leadership (Source: AIAA)
Issues examined at last week's AIAA aerospace workforce conference included the dynamism and complexities presented by the increasingly globalized pool of students and workers; teacher preparation; the impact of U.S. export controls; the quality of engineering school graduates; and how best to motivate students at both the K-12 and college levels to pursue engineering as a career.

According to one speaker: "Academia, industry and government have to understand the culture of the 'millennial generation' that will supply our students and new hires in aerospace for the foreseeable future. They are motivated by problems that have a very strong connection to society, such as the environment, energy issues, health care and medicine, poverty, etc. We are talking to a very different group of young people now." According to another: "Indications exist that as older members of the workforce retire, we need to work harder at preparing their successors through mentoring and increased job experience."

Strong Profit Reports Expected for Defense Firms (Source: AIA)
Defense contractors are expected to report strong fourth-quarter profits next week, and observers say a plateau in defense spending remains a year away. Most defense firms are expected to meet or exceed their targets for the quarter.

New Orleans to Continue Building Parts for NASA (Source: Florida Today)
Spaceship and rocket parts will continue to be built in New Orleans even though the areas surrounding Michoud Assembly Facility remain abandoned. "There's a very pressing need to get jobs there," says David Smith, a senior manager with Boeing, who has been leading an effort to set up offices in New Orleans.

The COTS Enigma (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program has been widely hailed by the alt.space community as a breakthrough in US launch policy, but the numbers just don't add up. This project will be too late and too little to make a significant contribution to closing the post-Shuttle ISS supply gap - except perhaps as a slush fund to cover cost overruns in Orion/Ares. COTS envisages that rank amateurs will build and test two much more sophisticated spacecraft than the ATV (Europe) and HTV (Japan) space station resupply craft, plus two reusable boosters, for about 1/4 the money and 1/3 the time it took experienced professionals in Europe and Japan. The manned COTS-D vehicle is supposed to make its first flight in 2012 - two years ahead of the current plan for NASA's own lavishly funded Orion and its even more lavishly funded Ares I booster.

And any potential investor who researches COTS with due diligence will discover that NASA states outright that they may choose not to purchase any actual deliveries to the ISS -- even if one of the contractors succeeds in making a demonstration flight! Nobody in their right mind will put money into a private ISS supply system at the same time that NASA is pumping billions into Ares I and Orion Block 1 to perform the same mission in-house. Visit http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_COTS_Enigma_999.html to view the article.

Sea Launch Prepares for Jan. 25 Launch (Source: SeaLaunch)
The Boeing-led Sea Launch team is preparing for its first mission of the year on Jan. 25, with the launch of the NSS-8 communications satellite for SES NEW SKIES. The Odyssey Launch Platform and the Sea Launch Commander are currently sailing to the launch site on the Equator to begin launch operations. On launch day, a Zenit-3SL rocket will lift the 5,920 kg spacecraft to geosynchronous transfer orbit.

SpaceX Falcon Preps for Jan. 21 Launch (Source: New Scientist)
The Falcon 1 rocket is set to make its second launch attempt on 21 January from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announced. The first Falcon launch last March ended in failure 29 seconds into the flight due to a fuel leak. SpaceX plans to conduct a static engine firing of its second rocket on 18 January.