December 16 News Items

Florida Budget Situation Worsens, Could Affect Space Projects (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Governor Charlie Crist and the Florida Legislature are preparing for a Special Legislative Session on Jan. 5-16 to deal with the state's $2.3 billion budget deficit. Among the solutions being considered by Gov. Crist is the redirection of unspent construction funds, including space-industry projects. Editor's note: Space Florida in early 2008 received a $14.5 million appropriation to convert Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The agency hopes to accommodate multiple commercial launch companies at the facility's dual launch pads. (12/16)

Competitors for NASA Space Suit Contract to Work Together (Source: AP)
Two companies that competed against each other in a contested bid to design the next-generation space suit for NASA will now work together in a joint enterprise. The team will jointly bid for the $745 million contract. Oceaneering International, best known for providing deep water support to the oil and gas industry, was selected in June for the project. Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover protested the award to Oceaneering and NASA later terminated the contract, saying it would re-evaluate cost proposals from Hamilton Sundstrand and Oceaneering. (12/16)

World’s Hardiest Organisms to Face 3 Years in Space (Source: Popular Mechanics)
When a Russian spacecraft sets off late this year to scrape samples of the Martian moon Phobos, at least 10 of Earth’s toughest life-forms will be going along for the ride. The pioneering experiment, sponsored by the nonprofit Planetary Society, will test whether life can tolerate the deadly hazards of space for three years—long enough to hopscotch between planets. Three of each of the 10 chosen organisms will ride inside individual polymer containers. The quarter-pound biomodule that houses the organisms approximates the conditions they would encounter traveling on a space rock that has been knocked off a planet by a meteor. Many of the passengers have their own built-in protections, such as hard seed coats and the spores that bacteria form in response to hostile environments. (12/16)

Satellite Will Help Scientists Understand Hurricane Strength (Source: Florida Today)
A new satellite about 800 miles above Earth will soon help scientists better understand hurricane strength, sea-level rise and global warming. Researchers worldwide now can access the first climate data from the international satellite, Jason-2/Ocean Surface Topography Mission. Jason-2, launched June 20 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is a joint effort between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (National Center for Space Studies) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. (12/16)

Italian Microgravity Research Suggests Youngsters May Thrive in Space (Source: SpaceLand)
Italy's SpaceLand group conducted a recent microgravity flight with an 11-year-old test subject. SpaceLand says post-flight data, which has been reviewed by the Italian National Institute of Health and the European Brain Research Institute, suggests that higher levels of NGF growth factor and other hormones were produced by the young boy, compared to adult flyers. SpaceLand says these findings may bolster the case for involving youngsters in future space missions. (12/15)

Black Holes Are Like Doughnut Holes (Source: Space.com)
You wouldn't want to eat one, but you might take comfort in the new knowledge that a black hole and its surrounding material take the shape of a doughnut regardless of the mass of the black hole itself. Black holes can't be seen, but astronomers detect them by noting how other objects are affected by the tremendous gravity created in these small spheres of space. Intense radiation can be emitted from the area immediately surrounding a black hole as incoming material is accelerated to a significant fraction of light-speed and gets superheated. "This should be a very messy and complicated environment, but the stuff flowing onto different black holes looks the same, no matter how massive the black hole is," said astrophysicist Barry McKernan. (12/16)

Dark Energy Found Stifling Growth in Universe (Source: NASA)
For the first time, astronomers have clearly seen the effects of "dark energy" on the most massive collapsed objects in the universe using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. By tracking how dark energy has stifled the growth of galaxy clusters and combining this with previous studies, scientists have obtained the best clues yet about what dark energy is and what the destiny of the universe could be. This work is separate from other methods of dark energy research such as supernovas. These new X-ray results provide a crucial independent test of dark energy, long sought by scientists, which depends on how gravity competes with accelerated expansion in the growth of cosmic structures.

Scientists think dark energy is a form of repulsive gravity that now dominates the universe, although they have no clear picture of what it actually is. Understanding the nature of dark energy is one of the biggest problems in science. Possibilities include the cosmological constant, which is equivalent to the energy of empty space. Other possibilities include a modification in general relativity on the largest scales, or a more general physical field. (12/16)

SpaceDev Shareholders Approve Sale (Source: Space News)
Shareholders of SpaceDev Inc. have approved the company's sale to Sierra Nevada Corp., representing a consolidation in the growing field of small satellite manufacturers, SpaceDev announced Dec. 16. (12/16)

Lockheed To Build BSat-3c/JSat-110R Telecommunications Satellite (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, extending a recent string of successes with Japanese commercial satellite operators, will build the BSat-3c/JSat-110R telecommunications satellite for Broadcast Satellite Systems Corp. (B-Sat) and Sky Perfect JSat Corp. of Japan for a launch in the spring of 2011 aboard a European Ariane 5 ECA rocket, Lockheed Martin announced Dec. 15. (12/16)

Mars Once Had Bizarre 'Shell' Tectonics (Source: Discovery News)
Towering above their surroundings, Mars' massive volcanoes are symbols that the quiescent planet was once fiery and dynamic. Now new research suggests that before the planet cooled off, it played host to a bizarre form of plate tectonics unlike any the solar system has seen. Plate tectonics is key to sustaining life on Earth. Wherever crust is born in the deep sea, or destroyed as it dives back into the the mantle in an endless loop of recycling, volcanoes erupt gases and nutrients that regulate climate and continuously renew life.

One-third Earth's size, Mars is too diminutive to hold enough heat energy to sustain tectonics for very long. But billions of years ago its crust slid around like a rigid skin on a molten interior, according to Shijie Zhong of the University of Colorado in Boulder. "Earth is the only planet with plates that move around," Zhong said. "But you can have the entire shell of crust rotating with respect to the interior." (12/16)

Caltech Researchers Interpret Asymmetry in Early Universe (Source: Caltech)
The Big Bang is widely considered to have obliterated any trace of what came before. Now, astrophysicists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) think that their new theoretical interpretation of an imprint from the earliest stages of the universe may also shed light on what came before. "It's no longer completely crazy to ask what happened before the Big Bang," comments researcher Marc Kamionkowski. Kamionkowski joined other researchers to propose a mathematical model explaining an anomaly in what is supposed to be a universe of uniformly distributed radiation and matter.

Their investigations turn on a phenomenon called inflation, first proposed in 1980, which posits that space expanded exponentially in the instant following the Big Bang. "Inflation starts the universe with a blank slate," one researcher describes. The hiccup in inflation, however, is that the universe is not as uniform as the simplest form of the theory predicts it to be. Some parts of it are more intensely varied than others. (12/16)

NASA in Limbo as Obama Remains Mum on Future (Source: Washington Post)
Manned flights to the moon and Mars appear to be in doubt as NASA awaits word on its future under President-elect Barack Obama. The transition has reportedly been tense, with Administrator Michael Griffin seeking to protect plans for the Ares I rocket against cost-cutting efforts by the new team. In an e-mail to The Washington Post, Griffin railed against politicians "dictating design solutions to NASA," though he denied reports of a shouting match with Lori Garver, leader of the Obama transition team at the space agency. (12/16)

Honeywell Sees Big Profit Drop for 2009 (Source: AIA)
Honeywell International Inc. is affirming analysts' predictions that profits will drop between 6% and 16% in 2009. "We're clearly planning for a tough economic environment in '09 with negative growth in the U.S. and Europe and moderating growth in the key emerging regions," said CFO Dave Anderson. Investors seemed pleased at the news, bidding Honeywell shares up 6%. (12/16)

FAA Approves New Mexico Spaceport License (Source: AIA)
The FAA has granted a launch site license to Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic's $198 million base for launching tourists into space. "We are on track to begin construction in the first quarter of 2009, and have our facility completed as quickly as possible," said a spokesman for the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. Virgin Galactic will pay about $27.5 million for a 20-year lease, and other companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp., could also take up residence at the 16,600-acre site north of Las Cruces, N.M. (12/15)

Boeing Appeals to GAO in Loss of $1.1B Satellite Bid (Source: AIA)
Boeing on Monday filed its second contract protest of the year, arguing that Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $1.1 billion order for two GOES-R weather satellites even though Boeing "had a superior product under the disclosed evaluation criteria." Northrop Grumman Corp., the third bidder for the GOES-R contract, has until today to file its own protest, and CEO Ron Sugar has declined to speculate on what the company will do. (12/16)

MIT Report Outlines Goals for Future of Human Space Program (Source: MIT)
A team led by MIT researchers released the most comprehensive independent review of the future of the nation's human spaceflight program undertaken in many years. The report recommends setting loftier goals for humans in space, focusing research more clearly toward those goals, and increasing cooperation with other nations and private industry. After conducting preliminary briefings with various stakeholders in Washington, team members say it has been enthusiastically received by political leaders, a National Research Council panel, and the Obama transition team, among others.

"We need to rethink the rationales for human spaceflight," says the report's lead author David Mindell, professor of engineering systems and director of the program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT. He says that after the Washington briefings, "we sensed a great deal of uncertainty in DC about how to proceed with the Bush vision and human spaceflight in general. Our paper speaks to those problems in a clear way and offers some new ideas." Click here for information and a summary of MIT's recommendations. (12/16)

Russians Close-In on Cause of Soyuz Landing Anomaly (Source: IEEE Spectrum)
Russian space engineers think they are closing in on the cause of two dangerous off-course Soyuz landings in the past year, but recent activities suggest there is still a dispute about the leading theory. Top space officials have asserted that the problem—-the failure of one or more explosive bolts during reentry—-is already solved. But in fact, in a space walk from the International Space Station (ISS), scheduled for 23 December, astronauts will install an instrument that is supposed to confirm that theory, for which there is as yet no physical evidence.

The instrument, a small Langmuir probe, measures the electric potential of plasma flowing across the space station’s outer surface near where the Soyuz spacecraft are docked. The voltage difference between that plasma and the station’s electrical systems was an early headache for engineers, requiring the addition of two ion jets that ground the station’s electrical system to the surrounding plasma. (12/15)

Virgin Galactic Tests Rocket Mothership (Source: Guardian)
Flight International has got hold of the first video footage of the aircraft that will carry Virgin Galactic's space tourists to blast-off altitude. The 12-second video of WhiteKnightTwo slowly taxiing down a runway at the Mojave Air and Spaceport may not look that impressive, but according to Flight International it is the first time the outside world has seen WhiteKnightTwo moving under its own power. The magazine had offered a reward for footage of the tests. (12/16)

Saturn Moon Enceladus Has 'Spreading Surface' (Source: BBC)
A NASA probe has witnessed a moon of Saturn do something very unusual and Earth-like. Pictures of the icy satellite Enceladus suggest its surface splits and spreads apart - just like the ocean floor on our planet splits to create new crust. The data from the Cassini spacecraft is said to strengthen the idea that Enceladus harbours a sub-surface sea. The information was released at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. (12/16)

Saturn Moon Titan May Have Active Ice Volcanoes (Source: AP)
Observations from the international Cassini spacecraft suggest Saturn's largest moon may have active or recently active ice volcanoes. Radar images point to flows on the surface of Titan that could result from volcanoes spewing chilled liquid from the interior. Previous Titan flybys suggested ice volcanoes existed, and scientists believe they would erupt with ammonia, methane and water instead of lava. The latest data "not only indicate that cryovolcanism has been going on on Titan in the recent geologic past, but might even be going on on Titan today."

Titan is one of the few bodies in the solar system with a significant atmosphere. Scientists believe methane gas breaks up in the atmosphere and forms clouds that rain methane. The source of methane remains a mystery. Scientists favoring the volcanic theory say methane eruptions from Titan's interior could explain the moon's smoggy atmosphere. (12/16)

Earth's Atmosphere Breathes In and Out (Source: Cosmos)
New satellite measurements have revealed that the Earth's upper atmosphere 'breathes' every five, seven or nine days. Each 'breath' represents a response to changes in the solar wind, which is produced by particles escaping the Sun's upper atmosphere. The wind fluctuates as the Sun rotates, alternatively heating the upper air of Earth's atmosphere and allowing it to cool. When the atmosphere is hot, it expands; when it is cool, it contracts. (12/16)