April 21 News Items

Sen. Bill Nelson to Speak at Embry-Riddle Commencement (Source: ERAU)
The spring commencement ceremony for 705 students of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach campus will be held on May 5. The guest speaker, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), will receive the university’s Eagle of Aviation Award for his significant contributions to aviation. Nelson has served the people of Florida for more than three decades, as a state legislator, a congressman, and a state Cabinet officer. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000. (4/21)

Honeywell Profit Rises 22%, Outlook Is Raised (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Honeywell International Inc. posted a 22% rise in first-quarter profit, buoyed by overseas demand and strong profits from its big aerospace division and its specialty-materials unit that develops refining technology. The industrial conglomerate also boosted its 2008 sales outlook and raised the low end of its earnings forecast by five cents. (4/21)

Defense Firms Expand in Alabama (Source: AIA)
Several defense companies are expanding their operations in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin, for example, grew its work force by 9% in 2007. "From Lockheed Martin's perspective, we recognize that there is a lot of growth potential here in the community," said John Holly, top executive for Lockheed Martin Huntsville. (4/21)

Space Crew’s Hard Landing Raises Hard Questions (Source: MSNBC)
Last week's safe return of the latest international space station crew occurred during an anxiety-filled half-hour of official silenice that only later was explained by the cluelessness of Moscow Mission Control as to the whereabouts (and even the continued existence) of the Soyuz spacecraft and its three occupants. Although the crew members survived and were well enough to recount their ordeal on Monday, the landing raises huge questions about the Russian space effort's competence going forward. How on earth did the Russians lose track of the descending spacecraft? Why did alarming details of the landing — including the ignition of a brush fire that set the collapsed parachute ablaze and filled the landed spacecraft with smoke — take so long to reach the public? Visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24243569/ to view the article. (4/21)

ET Likely Doesn't Exist, Finds Math Model (Source: Discovery)
Earth-like planets have relatively short windows of opportunity for life to evolve, making it highly doubtful intelligent beings exist elsewhere in the universe, according to newly published research based on a mathematical probability model. Given the amount of time it has taken for human beings to evolve on Earth and the fact that the planet will no longer be habitable in a billion years or so when the sun brightens, Andrew Watson, with the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia in Norwich, says we are probably alone. Earthlings overcame horrendous odds -- Watson pegs it at less than 0.01 percent over 4 billion years -- to achieve life. The harsh reality is that we don't have much time left.

In another billion years or so, the sun will grow hotter and brighter, toasting our blue world beyond recognition. "Earth's biosphere is now in its old age," Watson said. "This has implications for our understanding of the likelihood of complex life and intelligence arising on any given planet," he added. "It suggests that our evolution is rather unlikely -- in fact, the timing of events is consistent with it being very rare indeed." Visit http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/21/extra-terrestrial-life.html to view the article. (4/21)

Alabama's `Rocket City' Yet to Catch Fever Over Mars Project (Source: Florida Times-Union)
Mars fever is hardly an epidemic in the city where America's next manned rocket is being designed. Some are excited about the Constellation program, which aims to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020 and on to Mars aboard a new spacecraft called Ares. The work is a civic booster's dream - it could mean as many as 2,900 jobs at Marshall Space Flight Center within five years. But, like elsewhere, the project has hardly captured the public's imagination the way the race to the moon did in the 1960s, when Huntsville was a cotton town growing into a rocketry center.

Samantha McCall, a student at Alabama A&M University, is more interested in cheap gasoline than a Mars mission. "I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to know anything about it unless they bring me back some gas," said McCall, 21. Playing a video game at a state-owned space museum near Marshall, Josh Morton wasn't too thrilled about going to Mars, either. "If they really do it I'll be interested. But right now?" said Morton, 11, of Smyrna, Ga. Right now would be good for NASA; the first test flight for an Ares prototype is just one year away. NASA has yet to project a date for the first trip to Mars. (4/21)

Whimsical 'N-Prize' To Spur Ultra-Cheap Space Launches (Source: New Scientist)
The challenge: put a tiny satellite that weighs less than 19.99 grams - the weight of about two British pound coins or four US quarters - into orbit on a budget of only £999.99 (about $2000). The satellite must complete nine orbits around the Earth, and this must somehow be verifiable from the ground. The prize: £9,999.99 (about $20,000). Your chance of success: close to zero.

That pretty much sums up a new challenge put forth by Paul Dear, a Cambridge University molecular biologist who apparently really likes the number 9. Called the N-prize (the "N" stands for "Nanosatellite" or "Negligible Resources"), the purse will be awarded to the first person or group to complete the challenge before 19:19:09 on the 19th September 2011. Importantly, the weight restriction does not apply to the launch vehicle used to put the satellite in orbit. Dear gleefully admits that he thinks the task is "well-nigh impossible." "Your job is to work around that 'almost,'" he said. (4/21)

NASA Offers $3.1 Billion for Space Station Cargo Supply (Source: Flight International)
Under NASA's new International Space Station commercial resupply contracts logistics providers can expect minimum cargo requirements of 20,000kg (44,000lb) and maximum awards of $3.1 billion. But companies will probably have to provide their own cargo processing facilities that meet the US space agency's standards. NASA has opted to procure ISS cargo resupply on a commercial basis between calendar year 2010 and 2015. NASA's logistics estimate for that period are an up and down mass total of 82,400kg, based on an ISS crew of six. On 14 April NASA released its final request for proposals, setting out the process that will lead to a selection of one or more resupply contractors on 28 November.

As well as satisfying NASA's flight-operations requirements on paper, the contractors' spaceships must complete on-orbit tests during the first delivery mission before docking with the ISS. But the real test could be whether potential contractors can be competitive and still provide the cargo processing facility required. (4/21)

NASA Offers Educational Online Gaming Opportunity to Developers (Source: NASA)
Educators soon may be able take the "learning can be fun" adage to another level using computer-simulation games with new technologies created by NASA and a yet-to-be-selected game developer. NASA Learning Technologies sponsored a workshop on its concept of delivering NASA content through a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) educational game to interested development partners. Designed to enhance learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), such an online educational game would draw players into a synthetic environment that can serve as a powerful "hands-on" tool for teaching a range of complex subjects. (4/21)

Stephen Hawking: Alien But Primitive Life Likely (Source: AP)
Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has been thinking a lot about the cosmic question, "Are we alone?" The answer is probably not, he says. If there is life elsewhere in the universe, Hawking asks why haven't we stumbled onto some alien broadcasts in space, maybe something like "alien quiz shows?" Hawking's comments were part of a lecture at George Washington University on Monday in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary. He theorized that there are possible answers to whether there is extraterrestrial life.

One option is that there likely isn't life elsewhere. Or maybe there is intelligent life elsewhere, but when it gets smart enough to send signals into space, it also is smart enough to make destructive nuclear weapons. Hawking said he prefers the third option: "Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare," he then quickly added: "Some would say it has yet to occur on earth." Hawking compared people who don't want to spend money on human space exploration to those who opposed the journey of Christopher Columbus in 1492. (4/21)

Budget Slashed On NASA's Educational Game (Source: WIRED)
Like much of the space program, NASA Learning Technologies (an education-focused subset of the space agency) is facing budget cuts that leave the future of the group's previously revealed educational online game in question. Original budget estimates for the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game hovered around $3 million over the next three years, though a recently filed Request for Proposals seeks developers willing to create and maintain the title under "a non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement." Assuming the most recent RFP is the final one, the game would be developed for free, maintained for free, and the only reimbursement the game's creators could expect would be the possibility of brand or product placement within the MMO. Interested parties have until June 18th to submit proposals to NASA. (4/21)

Staying in the Orbit of Satellite Radio (Source: New York Times)
When satellite-radio customers are asked whether they will keep their subscriptions through the end of the year, they answer differently depending on whether they have sought out the service or received it free through radios already installed in new or leased cars. People in the latter group, by 26 percentage points, are less likely to say they will “absolutely keep” the service, according to a questionnaire answered by about 3,510 users who also listen to AM/FM stations, and prepared by Jacobs Media, a consultancy for broadcast radio.

Both Sirius and XM have worked hard recently to push promotional subscriptions, which can last just a few months, to car owners. Together, they added about 3.7 million subscriptions last year, according to David Bank, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, and some 79 percent of those were from promotions to car buyers or leasers. At XM last year, 52.7 percent of such customers converted to paying subscribers. (4/21)

No 'Back-Up Plan' if Sierra County Votes Down Spaceport Tax (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
The head of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority won't go so far as to say Spaceport America is dead in the water if a crucial tax is not approved Tuesday in Sierra County. But executive director Steve Landeene does offer a somewhat bleak assessment, with few alternatives, if voters strike down the referendum. "At this point there is not a back-up plan," he said. Little more than a year after Doña Ana County voters narrowly approved a spaceport tax, Sierra County will take up the same question: Do voters want to raise their gross receipts tax rate one-quarter of 1 percent to help fund a $198 million venture? Two local governments are needed to approve the tax before a spaceport district can be formed, the tax collected and revenues spent. In a letter sent to Landeene, Otero County said it would hold its referendum in November but only if Sierra approves its tax. (4/21)