March 3 News Items

NASA Mum on Size of Workforce, Some Will be Retrained (Source: Florida Today)
NASA managers still can't say how many space workers will lose their jobs as the agency leaves the space shuttle era behind. Space officials offered one the most detailed presentations to date Friday on how the agency will move from space shuttles to a new fleet of crew capsules and launchers. Despite pretty charts and slick artist's renditions of new spacecraft, agency officials were at a loss to declare how many government and civilian workers will be needed after the shuttles retire in 2010.

"We are just now, in the last few weeks, trying to figure out what the numbers are," said Scott Horowitz, who directs development and operations for the new spacecraft program. One thing remains certain, however, the shuttle Atlantis will be retired next year. The remaining two orbiters, Discovery and Endeavour, will fly through late 2010. Even if NASA wanted to keep the shuttle flying longer, it couldn't, said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations. The agency already has canceled certain contracts and handed over some facilities to the new exploration program team, he said.

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has repeatedly said the new Orion and Ares systems will not need the 15,000 government and civilian workers currently employed on the shuttle program. The job skills of many Kennedy Space Center shuttle workers, such as those who stack booster segments or work in launch control, almost certainly will guarantee them a spot working on the new vehicles, Horowitz said. However, dozens of workers who now process the shuttles will be offered training opportunities for different work because those shuttle-specific skills will not be needed beyond 2010.

Why a Moon Mission Is Worth the Money (Sources: Washington Post, NASA Watch)
The Luddites have long opposed manned exploration as a waste of resources when, as the mantra goes, we have so many problems here on Earth. I find this objection incomprehensible. When will we stop having problems here on Earth? In a fallen world of endless troubles, that does not stop us from allocating resources to endeavors we find beautiful, exciting and elevating -- opera, alpine skiing, feature films -- yet solve no social problems. Moreover, the moon base is not pointless. The shuttles were on an endless trip to the nowhere of low Earth orbit. The moon is a destination. The idea this time is not to go to plant a flag, take a golf shot and leave, but to stay and form a real self-sustaining, extraterrestrial human colony.

NASA Renews United Space Alliance Contract (Source: Space News)
Houston-based United Space Alliance signed a four-year contract with NASA worth $6.34 billion to continue supporting space shuttle and international space station operations through 2010. The contract, backdated to October 2006, replaces a temporary arrangement the company had been working under. The contract includes five one-year options that if exercised would keep USA busy supporting the space station through 2015.

Climate Change Impact More Extensive than Thought (Source: Spiegel)
Global climate change is happening faster than previously believed and its impact is worse than expected, information from an as-yet unpublished draft of a long-awaited second part of a United Nations report. No region of the planet will be spared and some will be hit especially hard. Is the world's weather already out of control? Is the pollution of the past decades having an impact on the present? That's exactly what the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fears: Human influences over the last 30 years "have had a recognizable effect on many physical and biological systems," write the authors of the as yet unreleased second part of the 2007 global climate change report.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is convinced global warming is already making the world sweat. At least that's the gist of the "Summary for Policymakers" from the group made up of hundreds of scientists. The main conclusion of the report is that climate change is already having a profound effect on all the continents and on many of the Earth's ecosystems.

South Florida's Zero-G Works Toward Financial Takeoff (Source: South Florida Sun Sentinel)
News that famous physicist Stephen Hawking will soon board a flight that simulates space travel is drawing attention to the Dania Beach company that offers the weightlessness ride, Zero Gravity Corp. Company founder Peter Diamandis said Friday he offered fellow space enthusiast Hawking the trip to help convince the public that space travel now is open to everyone -- from the able to the disabled, teenagers to octogenarians. "My mission is to do for space travel what Jacques Cousteau did for scuba diving -- to make it possible for anyone who wants to enjoy the experience," Diamandis said in a phone interview from Seattle. "And if [Hawking] can do it, anyone can."

In late 2004, Zero Gravity pioneered U.S. commercial flights offering the sense of weightlessness, with a modified Boeing 727 jet and procedures approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. Since then, it's taken some 2,500 customers on about 100 flights to feel as if they were on the moon or in space, Diamandis said. So far, the business is losing money -- even though clients now shell out about $3,750 each per trip. But Diamandis said he expects profits this year, as Zero-G expands operations across the United States and generates more publicity from travelers like Hawking.

To grow, the privately held firm is now investing $10 million to outfit a jet to serve Zero-G full-time. The business started out part-time, mostly on weekends, sharing a jet with Fort Lauderdale-based cargo transporter Amerijet International, which would use the craft weekdays for freight. But demand has surged, thanks partly to ample media coverage of trips by math and science teachers funded by tech giant Northrop Grumman (and the Space Research Institute). Zero-G now operates mainly from Kennedy Space Center, where clients arrive both to experience the NASA site and fly from its famed runway. The company also offers trips from Las Vegas, tapping into conventions there. If demand warrants, plans call for a second full-time jet later this year, likely to be based in Las Vegas.