January 9 News Items

Space Florida Meets With Obama Team (Source: Florida Today)
The incoming Obama Administration's NASA Review Team tagged up with Space Florida and had a productive and insightful briefing on the state's role in the future of space exploration. Space Florida President Steve Kohler met with members of the review team in Washington, D.C., and had a wide-ranging discussion that covered topics such as the state's commercial space infrastructure program -- a project aimed at converting launch pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from military to commercial use. Other topics included the state's plans to create a Commercial Launch Zone at Cape Canaveral that will extend tax benefits to launch services companies -- a concept similar to tax advantages given to businesses operating in Foreign Trade Zones. Click here to view their meeting summary. (1/9)

Pentagon Budget Eyed for Economic Stimulus (Source: AIA)
A new administration will be in no hurry to cut defense spending, experts say, fearing further job losses in the midst of a severe recession. "I would be very doubtful that Congress will cut any major procurement programs, because the Democrats would not want to be accused of putting anyone out of work," says Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon chief financial officer. Supplemental funding will drop as two wars wind down, but some of that will be absorbed into the baseline budget as defense spending becomes a tool for economic stimulus. (1/9)

Virgin Galactic Denies Problems with Carrier Aircraft (Source: Telegraph)
Flight International reported that WhiteKnightTwo, the mother ship, ran into trouble when making a series of ariel maneuvers. WhiteKnightTwo is being used to carry SpaceShipTwo, the rocket which will take passengers into space. The journal cited an unnamed source as providing the information about the supposed difficulties during the test flight at the Mohave Air and Space Port in California.

It claimed that Peter Siebold, the test pilot, was unable to keep the aircraft on the runway. But this was denied by Will Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic's president. "There are no issues we know of at all at this stage which will affect the programme or the overall design. It is beyond ridiculous," he said. "There is no problem with the flight." (1/9)

Griffin Strongly Rejects Shift to EELV (Source: Aviation Week)
It would be a mistake to drop development of the Ares I crew launch vehicle in favor of a human-rated Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), NASA Administrator Michael Griffin argued in a detailed defense of the outgoing Bush administration's human spaceflight policy. But he said it might be possible to close the gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability by spending extra money to continue flying the space shuttle beyond 2010, and to accelerate Ares I development to make it available before 2015.

He strongly rejected the idea that the Ares I/Orion development is so beset by technical problems that it would be better to drop the shuttle-derived launch vehicle in favor of a human-rated Atlas V or Delta IV. That approach would confine the U.S. to low-Earth orbit, he argued, while the Constellation vehicles are being developed with the intention of carrying humans back to the moon and on to near-Earth asteroids and Mars. (1/9)

University of Arizona Receives Asteroid Protection Grant (Source: UA)
The University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey has been awarded a $3.16 million NASA grant to continue protecting Earth from killer asteroids. The grant will fund the survey through 2012. The CSS tracks and identifies Near Earth Objects, which are asteroids and comets traveling through space that have come or are predicted to come within 130 million miles of Earths sun, making them a risk to hit Earth.

The CSS is looking for NEOs that are about the size of 10 football fields. An object of that size could destroy civilization if it hit Earth. It could disrupt the food chain because of the huge amount of soil and rock it could send into the atmosphere, which could then block the suns rays for years. (1/9)

Weldon, Smith Elected to Space Foundation's Board of Directors (Source: Space Foundation)
The Board of Directors of the Space Foundation has elected The Honorable Dave Weldon, M.D., former congressman from Melbourne, Fla., and Ms. Patti Grace Smith, former associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation for the FAA, as members of the Board of Directors effective January 14, 2009. Weldon recently retired from the U.S. House of Representatives after 14 years of service. (1/9)