March 10 News Items

Countdown to Hardship as Shuttle Nears Retirement (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Brevard County officials are counting down to what looks like a dark and troubled future. The county is facing thousands of imminent job losses and unexpected hitches in attracting new space business. According to Washington insiders, NASA -- which until now has refrained from putting numbers on work-force losses -- will announce in two weeks that 4,000 jobs will disappear with the shuttle in 2010. Experts anticipate another few thousand associated jobs will follow suit.

Space advocates say it is unlikely that the new opportunities in commercial space that Florida has been chasing will come close to making up those numbers. Even more worrying: the state is facing increasingly tough competition from other launch sites in the U.S. and around the globe. The news that Orbital might launch its new rocket from Virginia was a huge blow to Florida's assumptions that all NASA-related launch activity would gravitate to the cape.

Florida Space Day Marks Renewed Effort to Boost Industry (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
In recent weeks, Brevard County has hired Wexler & Walker, a big Washington lobbying firm, to press Congress for more space opportunities. County officials and space advocates are also hitting Tallahassee hard. The traditionally festive Space Day at the Capitol was transformed from a purely symbolic event into a series of hurried, closed-door pleas for state incentives. Teams from Lockheed Martin, Space Florida and NASA scrambled to hit all 160 members of the state Legislature.

Their tactics were exhaustive, and so was the wish list. They asked for a new $45 million space incentive fund to lure companies looking to relocate. They also wanted a grab-bag of other financial sweeteners for aviation and aerospace companies willing to do business in Florida. These included extending tax breaks previously offered to defense contractors, and pumping $20 million into a multi-university research and technology center that could cluster space-related brain power.

State budget writers are also being asked to extend work-force retraining dollars for the thousands of soon-to-be unemployed shuttle workers. Legislators have already filed bills to give future commercial space ventures immunity to lawsuits in the event of deaths except in cases of negligence. Visit http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-shuttle1008mar10,0,2450152.story?page=1 to view the article.

Engineers Assess Problem Aboard Jules Verne Craft (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
An electronics box on Europe's first cargo ship shut down a propulsion system command chain responsible for a quarter of the space-age delivery truck's maneuvering thrusters. Officials stationed in a control center in Toulouse, France, are working to analyze the problem. During the propulsion system's activation sequence moments after reaching orbit, Jules Verne's computers noticed a slight pressure difference between the ship's hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer being fed through valves. The suspect chain is redundant and controls seven of 28 attitude control jets and one the ship's four main engines.

Investment in Entrepreneurial Innovation: why cooperate? (Source: Space Review)
In the highly competitive world of business, why should companies work together to help develop a new industry? Paul Eckert explains why various companies and organizations are doing just that to help promote the entrepreneurial space sector. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1080/1 to view the article.

Hoping for a Reality Tomorrow (Source: Space Review)
Last week's Goddard Memorial Symposium provided an opportunity not just to look back at the first 50 years of the Space Age, but to also look ahead to the next 50. Jeff Foust reports on what the administrator of NASA and the president's science advisor hope today will be become the reality of tomorrow. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1079/1 to view the article.

Space Weapons Agreements, Treaties, and Politics (Source: Space Review)
Recent events have renewed the debate on the effectiveness of a treaty banning space weapons. Taylor Dinerman discusses the arguments made in opposition to such a treaty made by a senior State Department official last week. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1078/1 to view the article.

South Korea Changes Astronaut for April Mission (Source: SpaceToday.net)
South Korean officials have replaced the man who was scheduled to be the first Korean in space with his alternate after he broke rules during training. Ko San, a 31-year-old technology researcher, was selected in September to fly to the ISS on a Soyuz taxi flight to the ISS next month. However, South Korea's Ministry of Education, Science and Technology replaced him Monday after Russian officials cited two rules violations by Ko: he shipped a training manual back home and also reviewed a manual containing information that he was not authorized to see. Ko will be replaced by his alternate, Yi So-yeon, a 29-year-old biotechnology researcher. The two were named finalists in late 2006 out of 36,000 who participated in a national competition; Yi trained in parallel with Ko after Ko was named to the flight in September. Yi will become only the second Asian woman to fly in space.

SpaceX Contracted to Carry ORS Payload (Source: UPI)
California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. says it has been contracted to carry the Operationally Responsive Space Office's first jumpstart mission onboard a June Falcon-one launch. Defense officials say the payload, expected to be decided before the scheduled SpaceX Flight readiness review, could include an Air Force Research Laboratory plug and play satellite bus, SpaceDev Inc. Trailblazer spacecraft bus or an Air Force Office of Scientific Research NanoSat-4, CUSat for the space testing.

Florida Teachers Soar Into Space Lessons (Source: Central Florida 13)
Math and science can be a drag for some students. But as News 13's Tiffany Greene explains, teachers across the state are learning how to make those subjects soar off the page. But before the students in the classroom can lift off with new lesson plans, the teachers have to know what they're talking about. Space Florida is helping educators do just that.

In a recent session, 22 middle school and high school teachers from 12 counties defied gravity, conducted experiments and learned about space shuttle missions. What they are learned is making it easier for them to introduce new topics to their students -- topics like like microgravity research. "Anytime you are able to convey something you have experienced on your own, you are able to articulate it that much better with that much more content knowledge and that much more enthusiasm," said Susan Borland, of the Tallahassee Challenger Learning Center.

GAO IDs Space Acquisitions Woes (Source: Aviation Week)
In testimony before the Senate on March 4, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that although DOD has made strides in addressing cost overruns and delays in space acquisitions, it continues to face persistent problems. "The majority of major acquisition programs in DOD's space portfolio have experienced problems, resulting in cost growth close to or exceeding 100 percent on some programs," said a GAO official.

GAO cited five notable programs that have incurred "substantial cost growth and schedule delays": the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF program. GAO acknowledged that DOD is operating in a challenging environment, pressured "to deliver new, transformational capabilities" while managing "problematic, older satellite programs" that continue to cost money, constrain investment dollars and pose a risk to capabilities.