February 10 News Items

NASA Langley Could See Funding Reduced by $92M (Source: DailyPress.com)
NASA Langley Research Center could see a $92million drop in its budget next year — a cut of about 13 percent — but the center director said Monday that work from other NASA centers should flow in over the year to make up the gap. Director Lesa B. Roe said Langley faces challenges in making sure the center can secure unbudgeted research, analysis and fabrication work over the next fiscal year in order to maintain funding and employment levels. Roe said she is optimistic that will happen and said Langley appears to be on sound footing throughout the five years included in President Bush's budget for NASA.

Colorado Offers Launchpad for Space Ventures (Source: Denver Post)
The Eighth Continent project at Colorado School of Mines is designed to integrate space technology and resources into the global economy. The Eighth Continent Project is a research hub, incubator, venture fund and chamber of commerce to organize the commercialization of space technology and resources. It focuses on "Space 2.0," which includes venture-backed entrepreneurs with new technologies and those that use space as a means rather than an end. The project was born from the Center for Space Resources, a NASA partnership for more than 10 years. It was to bring together industry, academia and government to give industry access to NASA technology so they can take the ideas and incorporate it into their own Earth technology.

Colorado was also the ideal place to jumpstart this because it has all the right components to develop a new commercial sector. You have the technologists, you have the investors, you have the entrepreneurs — you have all the background and the infrastructure to develop this new commercial sector. So that's why 8C came about. Visit http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_8212849 to view the article.

Stepping Up the Search for ET (Source: New Scientist)
The silence has been deafening. After almost 50 years of combing the skies, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) hasn't heard a peep from any alien neighbors. Now SETI researchers and physicists are debating whether the program needs a radical rethink. Last week, they met at a conference called "Sound of Silence" at Arizona State University to work out what they could do better. "Have we been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong way?" asked conference organizer Paul Davies. Click here to view the article.

Gazcom To Orbit Two New Yamal-300 Satellites In 2009 (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
Gazcom will orbit two new Yamal-300 satellites in the first half of 2009, the telecommunications arm of Russia's energy giant Gazprom said Wednesday. In line with its commitments under a contract with satellite supplier Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, as of the end of 2007, Gascom has paid around 50% of the project fees.