August 20 News Items

Spacecraft Crash Due to Test Setup, Not Design Flaw (Source: New Scientist)
NASA has quietly released photos and video of a 31 July parachute test for its future Orion astronaut capsule that didn't go so well: the mockup capsule hit the ground pretty hard. Unsurprisingly, some have jumped on this, claiming that NASA is trying to cover up a failure. The full story is a bit more complicated than that. I'm sure NASA wasn't eager to publicise this embarrassing episode, but it wasn't exactly a failure. There was a problem, yes, but it was in part of the test setup, rather than in the parachutes that would actually land an operational Orion after a trip to the space station or the Moon.

Testing a parachute drop of a heavy object is not simple. In particular, several auxiliary parachutes were used to help set up the right test conditions, so that Orion's own parachute system would get a realistic test. Some of them failed, and as a result the Orion parachute system was activated at high speed, in dense, low-altitude air. The Orion "drogue" parachutes, intended to stabilise the capsule for main-parachute deployment, failed instantly on deployment. The capsule then began to tumble, main-parachute deployment was hopelessly messed up, and there wasn't any hope of anything resembling a soft landing. (8/20)

McCain, Obama Compete to be Seen as Friend of NASA (Source: Houston Chronicle)
The presidential campaign battle over NASA has come to resemble a high-stakes poker game, with John McCain and Barack Obama steadily upping the ante in a bid to appear the closer friend of the U.S. space agency. The winner of the game could take home a big political pot: Florida's 27 electoral votes. With polls showing a tight race in the nation's largest swing state, Obama and McCain seem to be outbidding each other in an attempt to woo voters concerned about space-related jobs that could be at risk in the next few years.

Obama pledged to support $2 billion in additional funding for NASA so that the agency can close a projected five-year gap in manned spacecraft exploration, which would result in the loss of thousands of jobs in Florida and Texas. The Democratic nominee-apparent also endorsed at least one more space shuttle mission before the program is retired. Obama's promises trumped Republican foe McCain, who was the first candidate to call for narrowing the spaceflight gap but has not committed specifically to additional money or additional shuttle missions.

Susan MacManus, a political scientist at University of South Florida, said the rapid-fire exchanges underscore the political sensitivity of NASA as a campaign issue in the pivotal state. She said the debate over federal space funding has become campaign shorthand in Florida for the state's troubled economy. "This argument is not about shots to the moon or specific missions in space," MacManus says. "This is a lot more about the economic side of the space program and the high-tech, high-paying jobs that it creates." (8/20)

Space Station Provides Boost to High School Students in California (Source: NASA)
Students from Buchanan High School in Clovis, Calif., who are taking part in a 48 hour space station simulation, will get an extra boost when they receive a call from the real International Space Station. Students at the school will participate in a live in-flight education downlink with the International Space Station on Aug. 25. (8/20)

Society for Women Engineers Sponsors Workshop for Grades 7-10 (Source: SWE)
The Space Coast section of the Society of Women Engineers will be hosting their annual "WOW! That's Engineering!" workshop for girls in 7th to 10th grades. The event will be held at Bayside High School (1901 DeGroodt Road SW, Palm Bay, FL) on Oct. 11. Participants in the "WOW! That's Engineering!" workshop will: experience the creativity and innovation of engineering and technology; meet women engineers and technologists and hear first-hand about these exciting careers; and participate in hands-on projects. Check out http://www.swe-sc.org/WOW/ for more information and to register. **Volunteers needed!** (8/20)

Iran to Send First Astronaut Into Space Within 10 Years (Source: RIA Novosti)
Iran plans to send its first astronaut into space within the next decade, the head of the Iran Aerospace Organization said on Wednesday. "Iran is currently exploring the possibility of sending a human into outer space. This is one of the country's priorities for the next 10 years," Reza Taghipour said. He said the exact date of the flight would be determined before the end of the year. "In accordance with a program that we have developed, by 2021 Iran is to become the leading space power in the region," he said. Iran said on Monday it plans to send into orbit several domestic satellites by 2010. (8/20)

MythBusters Tackle Moon Landing Hoax Theories (Source: NSSFL)
In July 1969 the world watched, wondered and worried as three brave astronauts headed for the moon. The extraordinary moment when Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon filled earthbound audiences with pride and confidence in scientific endeavor -- but did we really leap into the future, or did NASA pull off the greatest cover-up in human history? On Wednesday, August 27 at 9PM ET/PT, the TV show MythBusters takes on one of their biggest, most controversial myths ever: Could the moon landing have been an elaborate hoax? (8/20)

Fear of Mid East 'Cold War' as Syria Strengthens Russian Alliance (Source: Times)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad headed to Moscow to discuss an expansion of his pariah state’s military cooperation with Russia. The trip is raising fears that the new Cold War that has erupted in the Caucasus will spill over into the Middle East, long a battleground between East and West, and crush tentative hopes for peace. Israel, like its main sponsor America, has developed close military ties with Georgia in recent years, with defence contractors supplying training and equipment to the small, US-backed state. As Syria renews its Soviet-era close ties with Moscow, many here fear that the Middle East could once again become a theater for the two great powers to exert their spheres of influence, militarily and politically, in the volatile region. And with Israel and the US providing military backing to Georgia, Russia appears set to respond in kind by supporting Syria. (8/20)

U.S. Signs Missile Defense Deal with Poland (Source: AP)
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal Wednesday to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite. The deal to install 10 U.S. interceptor missiles just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost frontier also has strained relations between Moscow and the West, ties that already troubled by Russia's invasion of its former Soviet neighbor, U.S. ally Georgia, earlier this month. (8/20)

NASA Seeks Input For Commercial Lunar Communications And Navigation (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
NASA issued a Request for Information, or RFI, on Monday to gauge interest and solicit ideas from private companies in providing communications and navigation services that would support the development of exploration, scientific and commercial capabilities on the moon over the next 25 years. NASA plans to establish science stations on the lunar surface beginning as early as 2013. (8/20)

Venezuela Offers to Host Russian Fleet (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
The White House said Monday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's invitation to host a Russian fleet was "curious" and accused him of neglecting his people's problems. "The Russians and the Venezuelans can engage in whatever cooperation that they would like. But it's curious, I'm not sure what Venezuela needs or gains by a visit by the Russian fleet," said spokesman Gordon Johndroe. Chavez said during his weekly radio program on Sunday that Russian President Dimitri Medvedev wanted to send a Russian naval fleet to visit Venezuela. Under the leftist Chavez, Venezuela has been seeking closer relations with Moscow, in part to buy military hardware, including 24 Russian Sukhoi fighter jets recently delivered, after Washington refused to supply spare parts for the F-16 jets it sold Venezuela in the 1980s. (8/20)

NASA Engineers Complete Engine Test Series For Ares I Rocket (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., have completed a series of tests on a key component of the J-2X engine. The J-2X powers the upper stage of the Ares I rocket, which will launch human explorers to the International Space Station and to the moon. The test on Aug. 15 was the last of 20 in this series, concluding the second of four planned sets of tests on the J-2X's workhorse gas generator, the driver for the turbopumps which start the engine. (8/20)

Rocketry's Low-Cost Model (Source: Flight International)
When it comes to developing launch vehicles, images of burning money as rapidly as rocket fuel spring readily to mind. Space is naturally the domain of big corporations and massive government contracts, so a private venture starting from scratch seems an unlikely candidate to be the future of this industry. But that is how Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies - SpaceX - is being described.

So far, SpaceX has some heavy-hitting backers - the US Air Force and DARPA are sponsors, and SpaceX is a leading candidate to supply crew and cargo launches under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contracts NASA intends to issue to keep the International Space Station supplied after the Space Shuttle fleet is decommissioned. But the company has relatively little to show for itself its flight history consists of a string of three failures of its Falcon 1 rocket, now powered by a single regeneratively cooled Merlin 1C engine, which has been the centrepiece of its development efforts. Click here to view the article. (8/20)