News Summaries for February 13

Ocean-Based Launch: Extending a Successful Approach to New Applications (Source: Space Review)
Despite last month's failure, Sea Launch has generally demonstrated the success of ocean-based rocket launches. Andrew Turner describes how this approach can be extended to provide low-cost launches of inexpensive payloads with virtually no launch site infrastructure. Visit
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/808/1 to view the article.

Bigelow's Bigger Vision (Source: MSNBC)
Seven months after launching its first inflatable space module, Bigelow Aerospace says the orbiting Genesis 1 module has proven itself to be surprisingly resilient and reliable. The North Las Vegas-based company has already hinted that the successors to the Genesis could serve as turnkey space stations, hotels or sports complexes in orbit - or even as pumped-up habitats for the moon and Mars. Now Bigelow is promising to be more specific about how it plans to make its space program profitable.

"We will be making a very important and exciting announcement at the National Space Symposium on the week of April 9 in Colorado Springs, and we hope you will plan to be in attendance. For the first time, we will be presenting our business plans that we have kept to ourselves until now. This information that we plan to announce on April 10 at the Ball Aerospace Exhibit Center should help support the private space movement."

China Food-Fad -- 'Space Potatoes' (Source: CNN)
Having boldly gone where no spud has before, Chinese space potatoes are now the latest culinary fad to hit the country's ultra-trendy commercial hub of Shanghai. Slightly sweet and purple in color, the potatoes, named Purple Orchid Three, are bred from seeds that mutated while being carried aboard a Chinese spacecraft. China's space program claims to have produced numerous mutated fruits and vegetables by exposing seeds to space radiation, capsule pressure and weightlessness. Chinese agricultural experts say plants grown from such seeds can be hardier, more nutritious and produce higher yields, although many scientists say similar effects could be achieved in ordinary laboratories.

ISS Suffers Temporary Power Outage (Source: SpaceToday.net)
The International Space Station suffered a power outage Sunday that cut off communications with Earth for about 90 minutes, NASA announced Monday. The power outage took place when a circuit breaker tripped after an electrical switching unit malfunctioned. The crew spent the rest of Sunday and into early Monday restoring other systems affected by the power outage, including several scientific experiments and one of the station's attitude-controlling gyroscopes. Other key systems, including life support, were not affected by the outage.

Spacehab Reports Net Loss for Second Quarter (Source: Bizjournals.com)
Spacehab Inc. posted a net loss of $1.8 million on revenue of $12.9 million for its 2007 second quarter ending Dec. 31. The net loss compares with a second quarter 2006 net loss of $8.9 million on revenue of $11.8 million. During the quarter, Spacehab completed the sale of its retail and Internet business, The Space Store, to a private investor. It also sold its Destiny module mockup to the Seattle Museum of Flight. Since the end of the second quarter, Spacehab laid off 36 of its 220 employees as part of plans to restructure corporate functions, cut overhead costs roughly $3.9 million annually, streamline operations and improve efficiency.

New Mexico Spaceport Authority Committee to Involve Local Communities (Source: KOBTV.com)
An advisory committee has been established by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority to solicit ideas and feedback from communities that will be impacted by the project. Spaceport America is planned for a site in Sierra County, about 40 miles north of Las Cruces. It’s expected to open in late 2009 or 2010. State Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans says officials want as many local communities as possible to be involved in the planning and development of the spaceport.

Simulated Space-Launch Ride Coming To KSC (Source: WKMG)
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex plans to offer a simulated NASA shuttle launch ride starting Memorial Day weekend. The attraction, called the Shuttle Launch Experience, is part of a 10-year development plan. Former astronauts helped design the attraction. The ride is designed to recreate the sensation of blasting into earth's orbit. The space center is 45 minutes from Orlando. The Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau said the ride will have a motion platform, multiple video screens, special audio effects and special-effect seats. Walt Disney World has a popular ride called "Mission: Space," which opened in 2003. It spins riders in a centrifuge that subjects them to twice the normal force of gravity. The ride has motion sickness bags and signs warning people with heart, back and neck problems.

Russian Rocket Manufacturer Merges With 4 Firms (Source: AP)
A top Russian rocket manufacturer on Monday announced plans for a merger with four other space-related companies that is intended to strengthen its position in the global market for commercial launches. The state-controlled Khrunichev State Research and Production Center will merge with the Voronezh Mechanical Plant, which makes rocket engines, and three other companies that manufacture rocket components and equipment.

Hawaii Considers RPK Spaceport Deal, Legislation (Source: Honolulu Advertiser)
An Oklahoma aerospace company wants to use Hawaii as a base to take thrill-seeking tourists to the edge of outer space in a rocket-packed jet plane by 2010. Rocketplane Kistler Inc. hopes to begin testing next year on a modified business jet that would take off from a commercial runway and then use rocket engines to carry it into space. For Rocketplane Kistler to use any Hawai'i airport, the state would have to obtain FAA licensing as a spaceport. Obtaining such a designation is one of several aerospace initiatives making its way through the Hawai'i Legislature this year. Rocketplane Kistler has been in talks with the state about developing a space-themed education and training facility at Kalaeloa.

"It isn't a technology leap so much as a business challenge," said Edward Ellegood of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. So far, the company has raised $25 million of the $150 million needed to field a commercial fleet of space ships. Senate Bill 907 would provide $1 million to create the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems. The center would simulate a lunar base on the Big Island, which would support technology development and astronaut training. The bill also would create an aerospace development office within the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT). The bill passed the Senate Economic Development and Taxation Committee last week and now goes to the Ways and Means Committee.

The state made a similar push in the early 1990s that included plans to launch rockets off the southern edge of the Big Island. DBEDT said it will proceed with plans to create an office for development of aerospace activities, even if SB907 fails to pass. "We can be a major player in space, but we have to be proactive," said Jim Crisafulli, a research and development coordinator for DBEDT. Click here to view the article.

Just How Full of Opportunity is the Moon? (Source: Space Review)
NASA and lunar exploration advocates have put forward a number of reasons why humans should return to the Moon and establish bases there. Donald Beattie examines those rationales with a skeptical eye and finds them lacking. Visit
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/804/1 to view the article.

FIU Geologist: Black Diamonds Came From Space (Source: Miami Herald)
Professor Stephen Haggerty retrieves a 730-carat black diamond -- the size of an apple -- from his desk. It's nearly impossible to cut, potentially billions of years old and, he believes, a product of outer space. A Florida International University geologist since 2002, Haggerty is a top expert in the science of diamonds. In December, he, a graduate student and a team from Case Western Reserve University published a study that he says provides the strongest evidence yet that the black carbonado diamonds on his desk were formed in outer space, perhaps more than four billion years ago, arriving to earth as meteorites. In other words, these cold, hard pieces of cosmic dust may have taken their form before the planet Earth existed, and before the solar system was formed.

SpaceShipOne Partners Become Fierce Competitors (Source: AIA)
Aerospace designer Burt Rutan and entrepreneur Jim Benson partnered on the SpaceShipOne project, but they have since become fierce competitors. The two men dispute who deserves credit for the innovative rocket motor that powered SpaceShipOne. They are competing to become the first to offer commercial space flights.

Russia To Launch Lab Module To ISS In 2009 (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
The completion of a laboratory module for the International Space Station depends on financing, but it should be ready for launch in 2009, the head of the Khrunichev State Space Scientific Production Center said. Vladimir Nesterov said the Moscow-based center has completed 65-70% of the multipurpose module's construction, which was designed to develop research, functional and other opportunities of the Russian segment of the ISS and "is expected to be launched in 2009 by the Proton booster."

Near-Earth Asteroids Could Be 'Steppingstones to Mars' (Source: USA Today)
Asteroids are big hunks of space dust and rock that will eventually smack into Earth and end life as we know it. Or they represent the new frontier of space exploration. Or both. It depends on how you look at it. Asteroids could be the next landscape for scientific discovery. "We're looking at the possibilities," says Kelly Humphries of Johnson Space Center. With NASA planning a moon-exploring spacecraft, "Anything robust enough to go to the moon is going to be robust enough for lots of missions." NASA plans under study include landing on an asteroid and retrieving rock samples for return to Earth before 2020. Visit
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-02-12-asteroid_x.htmto view the article.

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