May 5 News Items

California Space Authority Plans Space Day in Sacramento on May 13 (Source: CSA)
CSA's twelfth annual Space Day in Sacramento is planned on May 13. A morning orientation will be followed by meetings throughout the Capitol with various legislative leaders. A lunch is also planned with members of the Governor's Administration and with leaders from NASA Headquarters. The afternoon will be spent in meetings with more legislators, followed by a reception in the Governor's Counsel Chambers. Visit http://www.californiaspaceauthority.org/spacedaysacto2008/registration.html for information (4/4)

Transfer Lunar Ruins to Private Sector (Source: Sarasota Herald Tribune)
Gotta love the Libertarians: maybe a dozen contenders for the party’s presidential nomination, from Republican Bob Barr to Democrat Mike Gravel; a genuine floor fight at the upcoming convention; no rote ceremonial coronation; no sacred cows. Hell, you can even propose legalizing marijuana without getting caned. Well, almost no sacred cows. No foolish UFO talk. That’s the message the Libs recently sent Vero Beach rez Dom Armentano. In January, Armentano, was terminated from the the Libertarian Cato Institute for reiterating — in op-ed pieces for a Vero Beach daily that the feds are withholding UFO data from the taxpayers.

Anyhow, when the Libertarians convene in Denver from May 22-26, they’ll be — wait, yo, hold up, hold up. Who’s that speaker on the May 23 agenda? Dude. It’s Richard C. Hoagland, co-author of “Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA.” According to the program summary, “He will...reveal — with official NASA imagery — startling scientific discoveries NASA, by law, has deliberately withheld from the American people for more than 40 years!” Hoagland will likely lay the whole thing on 'em: the unified field theory involving the Masons, alien lunar bases located at the same latitude as the Cydonia face, and majestic crystal ruins stretching miles above the moon’s surface.

According to one Libertarian congressional candidate: “NASA’s this huge government bureaucracy standing in the way of [space exploration], and we think space exploration should be done with private funds." Visit http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080502/BLOG32/911775591/-1/newssitemap to view the article.

Rockets Give Hawthorne a Big Lift (Source: DailyBreeze.com)
In a cavernous building where the company president sits in a cubicle alongside his workers, a rocket manufacturer is fueling an aerospace renaissance of sorts in Hawthorne. Once home to large-scale aircraft production that employed thousands of workers, the city was hit hard by consolidation and workforce shrinkage in the aerospace industry when the Cold War ended in the early 1990s. Now, with the October relocation of Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, from El Segundo, the city is hoping to restore some of the luster that faded when so many aircraft manufacturing jobs left Hawthorne or disappeared altogether. SpaceX employs about 450 people, with roughly 400 at the headquarters in a huge plant where Boeing 747 fuselages used to be built. (5/5)

Florida Helps Space Industry (Source: Florida Today)
Before leaving Tallahassee, the state Legislature enacted three initiatives to try to help the space industry across the state. Lawmakers approved protections from lawsuits for the nascent space tourism businesses, tax incentives aimed at helping space contractors to retain employees as the shuttle program winds down and a $16.25 million package for investment in infrastructure, job retention, training and research. “Given how the state is hurting for money, I think it’s been a good year,” said Pedro Medelius, deputy program manager, ASRC Aerospace Corp. He organized Space Day in March, when dozens of representatives from Brevard County lobbied the state Legislature. “We are still facing the competition from Colorado, California and New Mexico.”

Local lawmakers and industry leaders sold their needs by arguing that aerospace is not an industry isolated to Central Florida. NASA contractors operate in 47 of the 67 Florida counties, so broad support materialized for the space industry, Medelius said. Efforts to help the space industry drew broad support, including support from the Associated Industries of Florida, one of the state’s largest business organizations, said Leigh Holt, government relations manager for Brevard County. “Our entire delegation worked on this so hard, all of them,” she said. (5/5)

Transparency Crucial to Chinese International Space Role (Source: Aviation Week)
China's secrecy-bound space program, increasingly capable of advanced operations, risks becoming an impediment to international, cooperative lunar and planetary exploration unless it becomes far more open, say top international space policy managers meeting with their Chinese counterparts here. Control by the People's Liberation Army of virtually all Chinese space development will be a counterproductive factor "as the center of gravity for space exploration is beginning to move from the Atlantic to the Pacific," according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

As a result, John Hamre, CSIS chairman, says his organization is beginning a major initiative to promote better international coordination of exploration - starting with China, given the growing Asia-Pacific-region interest in lunar and planetary missions. To that end, CSIS hosted an invitation-only Global Space Development Summit here Apr. 23-25 with about 100 participants, half of them top Chinese officials and half U.S., European and Asian space policy experts or key managers.

"We hope we can start a discussion that will lead at first to ad hoc exploration cooperation for missions beyond Earth and ultimately to the creation of governance structures that will be critical to make exploration sustainable," says Hamre. Jacques Blamont, a French pioneer in early planetary mission collaboration, especially between France and Russia on Venus missions, recommends that a relatively informal international space governance forum be created to keep pace with new international mission concepts. (5/5)

China Satellite Navigation System Planned for 2010 (Source: Space News)
Chinese satellite navigation officials say they intend to field an operational system covering all of Asia by 2010, but they are giving few details on the deployment plans for their global system. In addition China has yet to complete frequency coordination with the United States, Europe, Russia and others. Chinese officials nonetheless said their global Compass/Beidou system would be fully compatible with the U.S. GPS, European Galileo and Russian Glonass global navigation constellations. Like GPS, Galileo and Glonass, Beidou/Compass would be free of direct user charges but also feature an encrypted signal for authorized users only, presumably including the Chinese military. (5/5)

Editorial: Time to Fix the Canadian Space Program (Source: Globe and Mail)
As a Canadian, and as a principal founder of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates some 40 years ago, I have, in recent years, been appalled by the increasing difficulties of the Canadian Space Agency. It has been consistently underfunded by a long succession of federal cabinets from both major parties. It has lacked visionary leadership in recent years and has seemingly become incapable of making significant decisions due to restrictions imposed by the cabinet. The Canadian Space Program in its present state is not capable of sustaining a space capability at the top level. (5/5)

Space Club Luncheon Features Mike McCulley in Cocoa Beach on May 13 (Source: NSC)
The National Space Club Florida Committee's May Luncheon will featuring United Space Alliance's President and CEO (retired) Mike McCulley speaking on USA's Future "in Transition" on Tuesday, May 13, 2008, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the DoubleTree Oceanfront Hotel & Conference Center on A1A in Cocoa Beach. For reservations: call LaDonna, 321-505-2037, or mailto:ladonna.j.neterer@boeing.com. (5/5)

Teachers Needed for 2008 Weightless Program! (Source: NSS)
Northrop Grumman and the Hawking Center are looking for teachers to apply for the 2008 Northrop Grumman Weightless Flights of Discovery professional development program. The 2008 program is accepting applications from public school teachers in the Chicago; Atlanta; San Jose; and Melbourne, Florida regions. For more information, please check out the Hawking Center website (www.HawkingCenter.org) or contact Michelle Peters, Director of Education Programs at the Zero-G Corp. at mailto:michelle@GoZeroG.com. (5/5)

The Vision for Space Exploration and Retirement of the Baby Boomers (Source: Space Review)
With budgets likely to be constrained in the years and decades to come, how can NASA carry out the Vision for Space Exploration and other efforts? Charles Miller and Jeff Foust argue that the key is the development of cheap, reliable access to space. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1121/1 to view the article. (5/5)

Point-to-Point Suborbital Transportation: Sounds Good on Paper, But... (Source: Space Review)
Suborbital point-to-point spaceflight would seem to be a logical step between the current generation of suborbital vehicles under development and orbital RLVs. David Hoerr cautions that such vehicles face considerable technological obstacles to their development. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1118/1 to view the article. (5/5)

British Perspectives on Human Spaceflight (Source: Space Review)
The UK is considering a revision to a national space policy that currently doesn't support human spaceflight. Jeff Foust reports on comments made by two prominent British scientists on opposite sides of the issue. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1117/1 to view the article. (5/5)

The New "Space Nexus": Another Apollo Debacle? (Source: Space Review)
As Congress gears up to reauthorize NASA, there is a natural debate about the future and long-term goals for the space agency. Greg Zsidisin worries that we could be in danger of repeating the same mistakes made over three decades ago. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1116/1 to view the article. (5/5)