October 27 News Items

Apollo and Shuttle Astronauts Join Obamanauts (Source: Obamanauts)
Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, founder and past president of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), and former Space Shuttle astronaut Dr. Kathy Thornton, have joined the "Obamanauts" to show their support for Sen. Barack Obama's space policies. They follow Dr. Dan Barry, another former Space Shuttle astronaut, as the latest to join the Obamanauts movement. Visit http://www.obamanauts.org for information. (10/27)

Grim Outlook for Ares, Says Beltway Insider (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A former chairman of the House science committee told Brevard County leaders Monday that NASA’s next rocket is “on the chopping block” and that a new administration may abandon the Ares I as successor to the space shuttle. The next president may look instead to use military rockets to launch NASA astronauts, said Robert Walker, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who, as a Washington-based lobbyist, represents Brevard County.

Walker told county commissioners; U.S. Reps. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, and Dave Weldon, R-Indialantic; and representatives of the local aerospace community that the word in Washington and at recent space conferences was “that Ares I could be on the chopping block.” Afterward, in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, he elaborated: “The discussion I am hearing in the space community is that Ares will certainly be reviewed by the next administration.” (10/27)

Richardson: Make Sure Obama is Pro-Commercial Space (Source: SpacePolitics.com)
On Friday New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson paid a visit to Las Cruces International Airport to participate in a press conference with the Rocket Racing League and Armadillo Aerospace about their new joint venture to develop suborbital vehicles (with support from the state to help develop facilities at the airport for manufacturing the vehicles). At the tail end of the press conference a reporter asked Richardson if he would take a position in an Obama administration.

“I am very happy where I am,” Richardson replied, then added, “But here’s what I want to be sure of: that the Obama Administration is pro-commercial space. We’re going to push that. We’re going to make sure it’s pro-space: pro-government space but also pro-commercial space. I think it’s in the interest of our national space industry that commercial space be properly developed. So I’ll be an advocate wherever I am, hopefully here still as governor of New Mexico, but you never know.” (10/27)

Armadillo Offering Unique Vehicle for Suborbital Rides (Source: Spaceports Blog)
Armadillo Aerospace's so-called "fishbowl" concept has been under study for a better than a year or so by the company's engineers. Passengers will enjoy a 360-degree view of space and the Earth below. A prototype is now being planned for 2009 from the Oklahoma Spaceport with commercial applications in 2010 from New Mexico. Click here to view the spacecraft's design. (10/27)

From the Garage (Source: Space Review)
Space has been a realm almost exclusively for professionals over the last half-century. Andrew Tubbiolo explains why it will be important for amateurs to become more involved developing technology for space settlement, and how it can be done. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1239/1 to view the article. (10/27)

Revisiting Island One (Source: Space Review)
The Island One space colony concept was one of the few space settlement projects with detailed development cost estimates. Nader Elhefnawy goes back and examines those costs and assumptions more than 30 years later and examines what needs to change to make space colonization happen. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1238/1 to view the article. (10/27)

Call for Pan-Arab Space Agency (Source: The National)
Arab countries should create an integrated space agency to slash the cost of putting satellites into orbit, security experts have been told. Dr Omar al Emam, of the Sharjah-based Arab Science and Technology Foundation, said the time was right to form the Middle East and North Africa Space Agency. Dr Emam said it should be a civilian project like the European Space Agency, rather than Nasa in the US, which began as a branch of the military. “There have been discussions about it in the Arab League and several countries have unofficially shown their support,” he said. “I think it is a realistic goal. I hope that next year there will be set up a regional organisation to disseminate images from observation satellites and help interpret them, and I think a larger space agency could follow on from that.” (10/27)

Spinoffs Expected From Suborbital Vehicle Work (Source: Space News)
The development of commercial suborbital space vehicles should lead eventually to businesses such as commercial hypersonic point-to-point air travel and low-cost launches to low Earth orbit, according to spaceship builders, venture capitalists and other entrepreneurs who gathered here October 22-23 to take part in the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.

The key to making those businesses profitable will be achieving safe, affordable and reliable access to space, Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, Calif., said at the conference, which was hosted by the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium. The private suborbital flight enterprise "builds up the infrastructure we need to go do the bigger and better things," which will lead to orbital spacecraft. (10/27)

Space Tourism Will Weather Market Crisis: Astronaut (Source: Reuters)
At over $30 million a ticket it is not cheap, but rich adventurers will still pay for a dream trip into orbit despite a global financial crisis, U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott said. Three days after returning to Earth from a trip to the International Space Station, Garriott told a news briefing at Russia's Star City space center that his journey had fulfilled a 30-year-old dream to fly into space. And although world leaders and home owners have been worrying about what some observers call the biggest global economic crisis since the 1930s, Garriott said the space obsessed rich will still find the cash to fly into orbit. (10/27)

Boeing Joins Commercial Athena III Program (Source: Aviation Week)
Boeing is joining the new PlanetSpace venture with Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) to develop the 2.8-million-pound-thrust shuttle-derived Athena III space station resupply booster. The critical factor in the program's ability to proceed, in the face of the global financial crisis, is Boeing's decision just this month to join the venture, according to PlanetSpace CEO Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria. Kathuria is pouring his multimillion dollar fortune into commercial space startups. The project has been underway for a year. The venture will go after the $3 billion NASA resupply contract to sustain the outpost until at least 2016.

Boeing's decision to join the project proved critical to help open lines of credit worth hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the Athena III development. The credit situation was reviewed and approved in mid-October with an all-U.S. group of banks funding the effort. Although Canadian banks were involved earlier, the company shifted to U.S. financing to make the program a totally U.S. domestic effort. The combined business power of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and ATK, teamed with the State of Florida was essential to obtaining financing for PlanetSpace, said Kathuria. (10/27)

Hubble Camera Back In Action (Source: Florida Today)
Scientists today began taking the Hubble Space Telescope's first picture in over a month, hoping to confirm that the observatory is back in action after a month of computer failures. Progress reactivating that camera over the weekend means the telescope should soon resume scheduled science observations, and won't have to wait until astronauts visit on a repair mission next year. (10/27)

ISS Crew: Get Out And Vote (Source: Florida Today)
Talk about swing votes. Flying more than 200 miles above Earth, astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Mike Finke today delivered a message to American voters who haven't yet cast ballots. "If we can do it, so can you," they said from the International Space Station, before completing a weightless back flip. The two astronauts plan to cast electronic votes this year, a right several other space travelers have exercised since the passage of a Texas bill in 1997. (10/27)

Earth-Like Planet in Epsilon Eridani? It is Logical, Captain (Source: USA Today)
Star Trek fans, take heart — Mr. Spock's fabled home star, the nearby Epsilon Eridani, could harbor an Earth-like planet. NASA astronomers today report that the triple-ringed star has an asteroid belt and a Jupiter-like giant planet in roughly the same orbits as in our own solar system. Only 850 million years old, a fifth the age of Earth's sun, Epsilon Eridani resembles a younger twin to our solar system. About 62 trillion miles away, it is the closest known solar system. It was borrowed by the creators of the TV series Star Trek as the location of Vulcan, the planet that gave us the super-logical science officer Mr. Spock. (10/27)

NASA Pros Send Resumes to India (Source: Hindustan Times)
With Chandrayaan-I less than half way to its rendezvous with the Moon, Indian space establishment’s credentials seem good enough for job inquiries from scientists from around the world. “I have got 10 to 12 (emails),” Chandrayaan's project director said, “and am sure some of my bosses have also got such mails.” And all these came after the Chandrayaan launch. These feelers are mostly from scientists of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). They want to work for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). (10/27)

Virginia County Seeks Funds for Wallops Runway, Research Park (Source: Daily Times)
The Accomack County Board of Supervisors approved the pursuit of financing for a $3.7 million taxiway that would link Wallops Research Park to an existing NASA runway. Accomack also needs to find an additional $600,000 to pay for road construction at the park. NASA, Accomack County and the Marine Science Consortium are involved in the research park. Building the taxiway is essential to keeping BaySys Technologies at the park. The company would install luxury interiors in the world's largest airplane, the Airbus 380, at the research park and needs the taxiway to get the planes to the park from NASA's runway.

The county already received $750,000 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development for the research park and is currently using that money -- along with the county's share of 25 percent -- for engineering, road design, and designing water and sewer service. NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services initiative also now has plans to locate within the park. Orbital Sciences' short-term plan us to bring 50 jobs to the area. The COTS initiative could result in more than the initial 50 jobs. (10/27)