December 15 News Items

Hawaii Space Initiative Includes Student Design Competition (Source: PISCES)
The Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES) has been created by the State of Hawaii to advance the cause of the human exploration in space and provide a mechanism for the State of Hawaii to become a leader in this long-term human endeavor. One of the centerpieces of PISCES will be a full-scale simulation of a lunar outpost, which is currently being designed.

PISCES announces its third annual Student Design Competition and invites university teams from throughout the U.S. to participate. The competition will provide students with a unique opportunity to work on challenging and relevant space development and settlement projects, initiate new engineering design directions, and interact with key people from NASA, JAXA, U. S. and Japanese industry, and academia. Depending on the choice of topics, opportunities may also be available for interested design teams to interact during the design process with teams from Japan. Visit http://pisces.hilo.hawaii.edu for information. (12/15)

Looking For Extraterrestrial Life In All The Right Places (Source: Space Daily)
Columbus OH (SPX) Dec 16, 2008 - Scientists are expanding the search for extraterrestrial life - and they've set their sights on some very unearthly planets. Cold "Super-Earths" - giant, "snowball" planets that astronomers have spied on the outskirts of faraway solar systems - could potentially support some kind of life, they have found. Such planets are plentiful; experts estimate that one-third of all solar systems contain super-Earths. Click here to view the article. (12/15)

NASA to Test Rocket Engine for Taurus II (Source: NASA)
NASA's Stennis Space Center will provide propulsion system acceptance testing for the Taurus II space launch vehicle, which Orbital Sciences Corp. is developing. The first Taurus II mission will be flown in support of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services cargo demonstration to the International Space Station. The demonstration currently is planned for the end of 2010 from NASA's Wallops Island spaceport in Virginia. Taurus II design uses a pair of Aerojet AJ26 rocket engines to provide first stage propulsion for the new launch vehicle. Orbital anticipates the first engine will be delivered to Stennis in mid-2009. (12/15)

Russia Hopes for Progress on START Talks Under Obama (Source: AFP)
Russia hopes that US president-elect Barack Obama will agree on a successor to a key nuclear arms treaty that expires in 2009, a senior Moscow diplomat said. "The president-elect and his team spoke about the future of strategic arms control during the election campaign," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. "We hope very much that signals will appear in the direction of controlled cuts in strategic offensive arms, and moreover in the crafting of a legally binding agreement, a new treaty to replace START I."

The Cold War-era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed between the US and the Soviet Union expires in December 2009, and Washington and Moscow have been seeking to thrash out terms of a new accord. The 1991 treaty limits the number of missiles and warheads that each side may have and is a cornerstone of Cold War strategic arms control. (12/14)

Central Florida Legislators Discuss Space Priorities (Source: ERAU)
About 20 state legislators from throughout Central Florida met at the University of Central Florida last week to hear community leaders' concerns and suggestions leading up to the 2009 Legislative Session in Tallahassee. Space industry expansion and diversification was a topic of strong interest among the elected officials and community leaders. Specifically, the discussion focused on the need for bringing more space R&D into the state and its universities. Multiple legislators expressed their support for a bill that proposes to establish a multi-university Space Transportation Research & Development Institute (STRDI), led by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. (12/14)

The Perils of Talking Spacecraft (Source: Space Review)
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft triggered an unusually strong emotional reaction when its mission ended last month, in large part because of the connection the spacecraft made with the public through the Internet. Jeff Foust examines the implications of these connections, particularly for human space exploration. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1270/1 to view the article. (12/15)

Klaatu Barada Stinko (Source: Space Review)
The producers of the remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still", as a publicity stunt, transmitted the film last week towards the nearby star Alpha Centauri. James Oberg explains why, if there's anyone there, they have no chance of actually watching the film. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1269/1 to view the article. (12/15)

Death of a Monster (Source: Space Review)
When rockets fail, they often do so in the most spectacular of ways. Dwayne Day recounts one such particularly dramatic failure from the mid-1980s. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1268/1 to view the article. (12/15)

Proliferation: A Solid but Flawed Report (Source: Space Review)
A new report warns of the dangers of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Taylor Dinerman notes that the real danger is not with the weapons themselves, but the missiles that are also developed to deliver them -- missiles that can also serve as space launch systems. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1267/1 to view the article. (12/15)

Vietnam To Launch First Remote Sensing Satellite By 2012 (Source: Space Daily)
Vietnam plans to launch its first remote sensing satellite by 2012. The country is now carrying out its satellite-launching project, worth about $100 million. The announcement was made on Thursday by chairman of the national Research Program on Space Science and Technology NguyenKhoa Son at the 2008 Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum. Currently, Vietnam still has to buy images taken by satellites of foreign countries for the purpose of forecasting weather, protecting the environment and studying natural resources. (12/15)

Uncertainty Clouds Transition at NASA (Source: Washington Post)
These are awkward times at NASA, which may or may not have a new leader soon and may or may not be on the verge of building a brand-new moon rocket. There has been a kerfuffle about a tense discussion in the headquarters library between NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and the leader of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team for the agency. There have been reports of cost overruns and delays in major NASA missions. Someone leaked an e-mail in which Griffin referred to a Bush administration "jihad" against the space shuttle. A former NASA official blasted the agency in an op-ed column. The comments posted on space blogs are full of rancor, accusations and anxiety. (12/15)

Commercial Space Station Finds First Customers (Source: New Scientist)
Commercial space flight is taking off. SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, which in September launched the first privately built rocket to go into orbit, has secured two customers for its DragonLab mini space station. The uncrewed capsule, built to house customers' experiments, can stay in orbit for up to two years before parachuting back to Earth. The first missions will launch in 2010 and 2011. With the space shuttle set for retirement in 2012, SpaceX says that scientists in fields as varied as materials research, biotech, radiation effects and robotic spacecraft servicing are considering DragonLab missions. (12/15)

China Launches Another Earth-Observing Satellite (Source: Spaceflight Now)
China launched a secretive Earth observation satellite early Monday for land surveys and disaster monitoring. The Yaogan 5 satellite blasted off on a Long March 4B rocket from the Taiyuan launch base in northern China. The three-state rocket boosted the spacecraft into a sun-synchronous orbit, where the satellite will begin operations in environmental surveillance, urban planning, crop studies, emergency response and space science experiments, according to Xinhua. (12/15)

Russia to Launch Solar Probe in January (Source: RIA Novosti)
Russia will launch on Jan. 29 a scientific satellite to study the Sun's interaction with the Earth. The Coronas-Photon satellite, designed to study solar and global warming processes, was delivered on Monday to the Plesetsk spaceport in Russia's Arkhangelsk region. A probe designer said 80% of its components and instruments were Russian-made, while the rest were contributed by various countries including Ukraine and India. (12/15)