August 16 News Items

Apollo Astronaut Represents McCain at Mars Society Event (Source: Space Politics)
Last week's annual Mars Society Convention featured a panel pitting Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham, representing John McCain, with Lori Garver, representing the campaign of Barack Obama. The 90-minute debate didn’t produce a lot of new revelations, but did offer some insights into the campaigns' philosophies. There was a sharp contrast between Cunningham and Garver. Garver has been working space policy issues for a long time, and recently has been working with the Obama campaign. Cunningham, on the other hand, does not appear to have an active role in the McCain campaign, at least on space issues; he mentioned that after he was invited to participate he had to read up on what both campaigns had said on the issue.

Cunningham expressed support for keeping the shuttle flying past 2010 as the best way to deal with the gap. (Although it wasn’t clear if he was speaking for the campaign or simply expressing his opinion.) “It’s going to cost a couple of billion dollars a year to extend the life of the shuttle, if you can do it still,” he said. Trying to accelerate Constellation, by comparison, is “getting to be a much stickier wicket, in fact, that may not be possible.” However, he was not impressed with Obama’s pledge in his speech earlier this month to fly at least one additional shuttle mission. “Adding one more launch isn’t going to do diddly for either the workers or the space program or Florida, but it might buy a few votes from those people who are down there.”

On the topic of COTS, Cunningham, was somewhat skeptical. “I don’t expect a whole lot to come to NASA out of COTS” other than some technology, he said. Companies like SpaceX, he noted, are learning how difficult it is to do things like human spaceflight. “There’s a reason why manned spaceflight is so expensive: it takes a whole lot more in terms of capability, redundancy, and things like that than any of the civilian rocket developers are doing today.” (8/15)

Garver Represents Obama at Mars Society Event (Source: Space Politics)
One of the better insights from the Mars Society debate was when Lori Garver was asked why Obama had changed his stance on funding Constellation. Obama and his staff early on, she explained, “did feel that Constellation was a Bush program and didn’t make a lot of sense.” That was reinforced by feedback from the scientific community, she added, that didn’t think human spaceflight was as valuable as robotic scientific work. However, after hearing from people in both the space and education communities, “they really thought it through, they recognized the importance of space.” Now, she said, “he recognizes that Constellation really is exploring with humans and robots beyond low Earth orbit” and that he truly supports it, rather than supporting it only as a tool to win votes in Florida.

Garver dropped a hint that a President Obama might be willing to reconsider that Constellation vehicle architecture. “Senator Obama has talked about Constellation and has not specified a specific architecture,” she said. “I think one of the reasons for that is that until you have the office, until you’re there and know what’s going on with these programs, you’re not going to make a commitment to it.” (The answer came in response to a question about the use of EELVs in the exploration program, not about alternatives like DIRECT.)

On the commercial side, Garver said that an Obama administration would support “the COTS model” and would have an interest in prizes. Garver also hinted that more details about Obama’s space policy may be released in the weeks to come. The quasi-official plan released in January is being expanded upon and refined, she said, with input from campaign officials and people like her. (8/15)

NASA Backs Troubled Rocket Design (Source: New Scientist)
Embattled NASA officials say they are sticking to plans to develop a rocket called Ares I after rumours surfaced that it was considering switching to a design based on the boosters that send the space shuttle into orbit. Last week, a blog published by the Orlando Sentinel, Florida, reported that the design had fallen out of favour after serious vibrations arose in tests. Doug Cooke of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate says he has heard no such talk among senior management. The agency says it has found a way to cancel out the vibrations using giant springs at the base of the rocket. (8/16)

Editorial: Hawaii's Aerospace Industry, The Next Frontier (Source: Hawaii Reporter)
I would like to invite the public to a very exciting one day conference sponsored by the State Senate and House Economic Development Committees. On August 21, experts in aerospace will converge at the State Capitol auditorium for a conference titled: Hawaii's Aerospace Industry, The Next Frontier. Thirty experts from the mainland and Hawaii will share their work, accomplishments, ideas, and vision on the aerospace industry and how Hawaii can continue to position itself to become a key player in the near future.

Many exciting aerospace ventures are being carried out or planned for and Hawaii has played an important role. We are a major contributor and beneficiary of the global aerospace industry, and guests panelists from federal and Hawaii-based aerospace institutions/companies/agencies and leaders in emerging dual-use technologies, astronomy, planetary geosciences, next-generation aviation, space launch, and aerospace education will present their work and achievements. (8/16)

Space Command Pushes for GPS Launch Tracking (Source: Air Force Times)
Air Force Space Command is hoping to add technologies and methods to its satellite launching operations over the next decade that will save money on infrastructure and personnel. Switching to GPS satellite-based tracking of rockets after they lift off and using more automated destruct capabilities for vehicles that veer off course are two of the ideas. The plan is based on a launch range study that was started 18 months ago and is expected to be finished shortly, Wilson said. The study is intended to lay the groundwork for the upgrades’ budgeting and contracts. (8/16)

NASA Terminates Spacesuit Contract (Source: SpaceToday.net)
NASA has terminated a contract it issued two months ago to a company to develop new spacesuits for use on the Constellation program. NASA said that "corrective action is appropriate" in justifying its decision to cancel the contract with Oceaneering International, which won the Constellation Space Suit System contract in June, but did not specify what led to that conclusion beyond a "compliance issue". According to one report, NASA had neglected to request a "cost accounting standards disclosure statement" from Oceaneering.

The losing bidder, Exploration Systems & Technology, a joint venture of Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover, had filed a protest of the contract award, but the GAO had not completed its review when NASA decided to terminate the contract. The original contract award was perceived as something of an upset, given the long history Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover had developing spacesuits for NASA. (8/16)

Pluto’s "Moon" Meets Definitions of Plutoid and Dwarf Planet (Source: Science News)
Pluto got the boot from planethood in 2006. But one of the dwarf planet’s moons, Charon, could get an upgrade, thanks to discussions August 14 during the Great Planet Debate Conference in Laurel, Md. “Charon is not a satellite,” Keith Noll, a planetary scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said during the meeting. “It meets the definitions of plutoid and dwarf planet, and if it weren’t orbiting Pluto, it would be a dwarf planet.”

But when the International Astronomical Union redefined planet and created the label dwarf planet, the group listed Charon as one of Pluto’s satellites — Nix and Hydra being the other two. In 2006, the IAU also wrote, “The idea that Charon might qualify to be called a dwarf planet on its own may be considered later,” as a footnote to their definitions of planet and dwarf planet. Stirring even more controversy into Pluto’s demotion, the footnote was removed from the IAU’s statement of resolutions two days after it was published, says Harvard University astronomer Owen Gingrich, who chaired the committee that worked on defining a planet. (8/16)

Space Invaders (Source: The Atlantic)
On February 20, a U.S. Navy cruiser launched a single SM-3 missile that slammed into a failed spy satellite carrying a half ton of toxic rocket fuel about 130 miles over the Pacific. As advertised by the Pentagon in a Valentine’s Day briefing, the destruction of the satellite was quick, clean, and complete. The impact blew the target to bits and vaporized the fuel; most of the debris was incinerated as it fell to Earth.

There was, however, one bit of alarming fallout: coming after China’s earlier, successful test of an antisatellite missile on one of its own old weather satellites, the U.S. shootdown may have marked the opening of a new arms race in space. Not only was the U.S. destruction of its own satellite less transparent and straightforward than billed, but it looks to have been part of a larger U.S. effort, mostly out of public view, to develop antisatellite weapons and to militarize space, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

The world has twice decided that allowing weapons in space is a bad idea. Early dreams of using nuclear warheads to destroy enemy satellites foundered because neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could figure out how to keep the explosions from also damaging their own spacecraft. In the Outer Space Treaty, signed in 1967, both sides agreed to ban weapons of mass destruction in space. Then, in the 1980s, after many antisatellite tests with nonnuclear weapons, the two superpowers stopped destructive testing. Development was too expensive, and kills could send debris zooming into other satellites. (8/16)

USA Alleges Firm Stealing its Engineers (Source: Florida Today)
NASA's shuttle fleet operator is suing the developer of a next-generation rocket that will launch American astronauts, saying the company is pirating away skilled engineers needed to safely fly 10 final shuttle missions. United Space Alliance filed suit Friday in Brevard County Circuit Court against Alliant Techsystems Inc., or ATK, seeking damages for fraud and breach of contract.

Additionally, USA is seeking an injunction that would prohibit ATK from hiring USA employees with skills considered critical to safely completing the shuttle program. "We're not going to court complaining that ATK is threatening shuttle safety -- not by a long shot," said a USA spokesman. "But what we are saying is that as long as we're responsible to our customer for ensuring a capable and focused work force to safely fly this system, we're going to take the actions that we feel are necessary to preserve and protect that ability." ATK officials said there is no basis for the suit.

The suit claims that USA in July 2006 signed a letter contract with ATK to provide engineering expertise to support the design and development of the Ares 1 rocket. A copy of the complaint says the contract called for ATK to hammer out a long-term pact with USA for the design engineering services. The suit, which asks for damages in excess of $15,000, claims ATK failed to negotiate a long-term deal in good faith, as required by the letter contract. Instead, the suit alleges that ATK reduced the scope of the work covered by the contract while aggressively recruiting and hiring USA engineers who had been doing the work cut from the pact. (8/16)

Editorial: McCain Should Support NASA's Lunar Plan During Space Coast Visit (Source: Florida Today)
Where does Sen. John McCain stand on NASA's future? We're among many people along the Space Coast and in Florida wondering as he continues his deafening silence about the agency's post-shuttle moon exploration plans. During a recent campaign stop in Titusville, Sen. Barack Obama made his position clear: He supports closing the five-year gap between the shuttle program's end and first flight of the new manned Ares-Orion fleet that will carry astronauts back to the moon, wants to stop the coming job-loss hemorrhage at Kennedy Space Center, and backs an extra shuttle flight.

In contrast, McCain has said he'd freeze all nondiscretionary federal spending. That would slam NASA's budget and cripple the Ares-Orion project to the point of possible death. McCain has a chance to change that position Monday during a planned closed-door meeting with space leaders at Brevard Community College in Cocoa, during which he should firmly back NASA's lunar goal and the money to make it happen. (8/16)

Russian Rocket to Launch U.S. Commercial Satellite Aug. 19 (Source: RIA Novosti)
A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying an Inmarsat communications satellite will be launched Aug. 19. The rocket is to be launched by the Russian-American joint venture International Launch Services from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. The agency earlier said an onboard computer failure was discovered in the Breeze M booster during prelaunch testing, causing the launch to be postponed from August 14. The Inmarsat-4 satellites, built by EADS Astrium, are among the largest and most sophisticated commercial communication satellites in the world. (8/15)

Kennedy Space Center Awards Custodial Services Contract (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected Brevard Achievement Center Inc., of Rockledge, Fla., to provide custodial services at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The new firm-fixed price contract begins on Oct. 1, 2008. It has a one-year base period and four, one-year option periods. The maximum value of the contract is approximately $41 million. Brevard Achievement Center will provide custodial services for approximately 2.6 million square feet of general office, shop, warehouse and support areas at the space center. (8/15)

California Officials Join with Northrop Grumman to Highlight Earth Observation Satellites (Source: CSA)
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and California's Lt. Governor John Garamendi joined Northrop Grumman Corporation in highlighting the contributions Earth observation satellites are making to global climate change monitoring. The event was held at the company's Space Technology sector facility in Redondo Beach, Calif.

"Scientists agree that global warming is real," said California Lt. Governor John Garamendi. "As the fifth-largest economy in the world and an environmental leader, California should take a leadership role in providing solutions. We can do that by pulling together a broad coalition that includes government, industry and private citizens." Alexis Livanos, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman's Space Technology sector, told the gathering, "There are three key approaches to addressing climate change: adaptation, mitigation, and monitoring. We have the technology to monitor the Earth from space, which in conjunction with observations from air, land and ocean sources, provides a comprehensive picture that is truly global." (8/13)

Embry-Riddle Opens New Space Coast Campus Classroom Facility (Source: ERAU)
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will host a September 9 open house at its new Space Coast Campus classroom facility. The facility features four classrooms in proximity to the many of the state's largest aerospace employers. The university focuses on advanced coursework for the aerospace industry workforce. Visit http://fusion.erau.edu/ec/wwc/centerinfo.cfm?CODE=13 for information. (8/16)