August 14 News Items

Ariane 5 Launches Dual Payloads in Fifth Mission of 2008 (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
Europe's workhorse Ariane 5 rocket took off from a South American spaceport Thursday on its third launch in barely two months, this time with Japanese and U.S. television broadcasting satellites. The rare daytime launch occurred at the Guiana Space Center along the northeast coast of South America. The rocket unleashed the 10,626-pound Japanese Superbird 7 satellite about 26 minutes after liftoff. After jettisoning a dual payload adapter, the stage released the smaller AMC 21 to complete the Ariane 5's fifth mission of the year. (8/14)

Satellite Firm GeoEye Must Restate Profits (Source: AIA)
Satellite company GeoEye this week said it must restate its accounting for 2005 through 2007. The restatement will lower profit for the period by $31 million. It also noted that a major government customer has cut back on orders after a delay this year in launching the satellite, known as GeoEye-1. (8/14)

Psychologists Show New Ways to Deal with Health Challenges in Space (Source: APA)
As NASA prepares to send humans back to the moon and then on to Mars, psychologists are exploring the challenges astronauts will face on missions that will be much longer and more demanding than previous space flights. Psychologists outlined these mental health challenges Thursday at the American Psychological Association's 116th Annual Convention, and introduced a new interactive computer program that will help address psychosocial challenges in space. Visit http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/apa-psn080708.php to view the article. (8/14)

NASA Delays Robotic Moon Mission Until 2009 (Source: AP)
NASA has delayed the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to the moon to scout for potential landing sites for astronauts. The moon craft is the first step in NASA's program to send astronauts back to the moon and beyond. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was supposed to blast off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in early December aboard an Atlas V rocket.

NASA officials insist they could have met the original target. The delay will cost the space agency up to $7 million a month, but the extra costs were built into the program's reserves. The swap means NASA will miss the Bush administration's stated goal of exploring the moon with a robotic spacecraft by 2008. NASA plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2020. (8/14)

Europeans Will Fly to Space, With India’s Help (Source: Central Chronicle)
Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier, the only European to have been in space four times, assessed that India would be able to send European astronauts into space within seven years. “Europe does not have autonomous means to send people to space as we have taken a political decision not to do so but India will be sending men into space by 2013-15,” he said. Endorsing his view, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said, "I think it is well within our capability to do that. We have enormous potential in space technology and satellite launching. Chandrayan is going to be launched very soon. Man in space is not very far behind."

Nicollier has offered to help India select and train astronauts. "Director of ISRO's (Indian Space Research Organization's) Satellite Center, TK Alex, showed some interest in my offer of training astronauts during a brief discussion I had with him," he said. (8/14)

The Race to Build a Green Rocket (Source: Plenty)
Space may soon be a tourist destination. A handful of well-funded private companies are jockeying to be the first to blast paying customers to the edge of space, where they’ll experience weightlessness and stare out into the void. These suborbital flights are expected to begin next year. And there’s a surprising twist to this new space race: The companies aren’t just competing to launch first; several are also vying for bragging rights to the greenest rocket. Firing off rockets to give rich tourists a stellar view may sound inherently un-eco, especially given the conventional airline industry’s contributions to global warming. There’s no arguing that the practice will emit greenhouse gases, but space industry leaders Xcor Aerospace and Virgin Galactic tout their programs as “environmentally benign.” (8/14)

Experts: Reliance on Russia Makes NASA Weak (Source: CNN)
Experts are growing increasingly concerned that the United States will have to rely entirely upon Russia to take astronauts to and from the international space station for at least five years. Observers say the situation is all the more worrying as after NASA announced a delay in the launch of its next-generation Orion spacecraft. NASA's dependency upon the Russian Soyuz space capsules and rockets to carry astronauts to the station is the result of a five-year gap between the scheduled retirement of the shuttle in 2010 and the debut of its replacement in 2015.

The agency had hoped it could narrow this gap by accelerating the initial launch of the craft to 2013 but announced Monday that because of inadequate funding and technical issues, the Constellation space program would not be ready for testing until September 2014. Although the new date is still within the March 2015 absolute deadline, many experts say NASA's reliance upon Russia to take astronauts into space has placed the agency in an unnecessary position. Click here to view the article. (8/14)

Panel Wants Massive Milspace Reshuffling (Source: Aviation Week)
A blue-ribbon panel of national security space experts is calling for a number of "bold steps" - including the abolishment of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) as they exist today - to shake up today's ineffective national security space procurement and operations structures and provide cohesive governance of this increasingly vulnerable area for the Pentagon. The so-called Allard Commission has briefed its findings to the director of national intelligence (DNI), deputy defense secretary and a number of senior USAF and intelligence officials.

The report from the National Security Space Independent Assessment Panel, which is the seven-member panel's formal title, will be published soon, and it is not yet clear if the Bush administration will adopt its findings prior to leaving office in January 2009. The most radical of the group's recommendations fall in the area of leadership, which was found to be woefully lacking across the U.S. government. First, the re-establishment of the National Space Council, chaired by the National Security Advisor is needed, says retired Lt. Gen. Ed Anderson, now a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton. This would shift senior authority for space policy from the vice president's office and puts it only one step removed from the president.

The panel argues that this is needed to allow a senior official authority to implement national space policy and - perhaps more importantly for the often-at-odds intelligence community and Defense Department - adjudicate roles, missions, requirement and funding disputes directly from the White House. Click here to view the article. (8/14)

McCain Visits Florida's Space Coast on Monday (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Looks like John McCain is heading back to the Space Coast on Monday to tweak Barack Obama. Details still to come, but word is the Republican presidential candidate will highlight Obama's recent shift on space policy. Early this month, Obama went to Titusville and told supporters there that he no longer favors cutting NASA's budget to fund an early-education program he had proposed. The money for that program, Obama said, would have to come from somewhere else because the U.S. "cannot cede our leadership in space."

The McCain campaign jumped on the issue, using it to again portray Obama as a typical politician willing to shift his message when it suited him. "Barack Obama once again demonstrated that his words don't really matter," a campaign news release said. Monday, McCain will appear in person to hammer home that same message. (8/14)

Editorial: Space Florida's Deal with the Air Force is a Model for NASA (Orlando Sentinel)
Florida's deal with the Air Force to convert an abandoned launch pad to commercial use could propel the state's space industry to a higher orbit. It also could serve as a model for a similar agreement between NASA and the Air Force that would spare environmentally precious acreage on the space agency's property. Under the deal announced last week, Space Florida, the public-private agency that promotes the state's aerospace industry, will refurbish a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The pad, unused since 2004, will become a new liftoff location for private space companies. (8/14)

Feeney: Jobs Won't Magically Reappear (Source: Florida Today)
The Space Coast's launch industry can diversify to keep employment high when the shuttle stops flying in 2010, but the task will be slow and arduous. 'We're not going to wave a wand and get 6,500 jobs,' said U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Florida. 'We can do it bit by bit.'Feeney, who represents the 24th Congressional District, appeared Wednesday at an interactive town hall meeting in Titusville.

In his opening remarks, Kennedy Space Center Director Bill Parsons said KSC must focus on the remaining 10 shuttle missions.'Without flying those missions safely, there may not be the next program,' Parsons said.Parsons and Feeney were joined by Space Florida President Steve Kohler, Economic Development Commission consultant Frank Dibello and Marshall Heard, chairman of the Florida Aviation Aerospace Alliance. (8/14)