Global Award Winners for the 2013
International Space Apps Challenge (Source: NASA)
The results from 2013 International Space Apps Challenge are
incredible. More than 9,000 hackers, designers, and explorers in 83
cities and from all corners of the world made this the largest
hackathon in history. An unbelievable 770 solutions were submitted, and
thousands of people worked together to address challenges and create
immeasurable amount of enthusiasm and investment in exploration.
Of those solutions, 134 were nominated for global recognition. Over the
past few weeks we have reviewed each and every one of them, a truly
inspirational process. A panel of judges consisting of representatives
from NASA and other governmental and non-governmental organizations
evaluated the top solutions, and today we are announcing the six best
in class winners. Click here.
(5/22)
Florida Entrepreneur Gives Shuttle
Truss New Uses (Source: Spaceport News)
A truss design devised to help workers process space shuttles continues
to find new uses as a space shuttle engineer-turned-entrepreneur adapts
it to everything from a solar-powered electric generator to a mobile
cellphone tower. The structure, which is constantly being redesigned
into smaller packages that unfold to larger sizes, also is envisioned
for Mars or other space destinations where it could be deployed to
connect modules for astronauts.
Jim Fletcher, who worked for United Space Alliance during the space
shuttle era, began working on the truss 10 years ago and started a
company two years ago called CPI Technologies dedicated to producing
them. He is working closely with the Florida Solar Energy Center and
the Space Coast Energy Consortium to refine the design since it is
clean and renewable energy.
The design began life as an extendable work platform that would reach
over the shuttle’s cargo bay. “We were trying to come up with a way to
reach out and retrieve something while the shuttle was out at the pad
so we wouldn’t have to roll it back to the Vehicle Assembly Building
(VAB),” Fletcher said. (5/17)
Moon or Asteroid? Congress Debates
Best Pit Stop to Mars (Source: Space News)
NASA’s plan to lasso an asteroid for astronauts as a deep-space dry run
for a future mission to Mars has some members of Congress wondering if
the space agency would be better off setting its sights on the Moon
instead. Some members of Congress favored sending astronauts back to
the Moon instead. “To me there is no better way for our astronauts to
learn how to live and work on another planet than to use the Moon as a
training ground,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) said. “It is difficult to
determine what advantages this [asteroid mission] may offer,” he added.
Editor's Note:
Take a guess how these members of Congress would react if China
declared their intent to capture an asteroid and gain expertise to
exploit its resources. Rather than being dismissive of NASA's plans,
they would probably view the asteroid mission as demonstrating a
strategic capability for in-space operations, while also supporting
future commercial asteroid mining and planetary defense needs.
Atlantis Takes Flight at Kennedy Space
Center Visitor Complex (Source: America Space)
With less than a month to go before the doors open on what could be one
of the most exciting space exhibits ever, Space Shuttle Atlantis is one
step closer to being ready to make her grand entrance. This past week,
at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, Atlantis’
payload bay doors were open; in doing so the concept behind the
structure’s design was clearly validated.
Space Shuttle Atlantis looked like a small spacecraft in a large
building when she was towed in to her new home back in November of last
year. The new $100 million exhibit has 90,000 square feet of exhibit
space and is funded without tax payer money (revenue from ticket and
other sales is what empowers the Visitor Complex to accomplish its
mission).
Now? There is a large spacecraft in a small building, one which has
been built around her. She is now within arm’s reach of the general
public, with the cargo bays open and the newly installed glass balcony
partitions separated by only a few feet. The port side wing (left) was
only seven feet above the finished floor when she was raised to 36 feet
off the floor, then tilted to an angle of 43.21’. Ironically
3-2-1, as in lift-off, is also the area code for Brevard County—home of
KSC. (5/22)
Local Leaders Busy Promoting NASA to
Feds (Source: Galveston Daily News)
The eight-dozen advocates representing the Citizens for Space
Exploration at Capitol Hill are preparing for a long couple of days.
The group of local elected officials, college students, space industry
business representatives and Galveston County/Galveston Bay business
leaders have about 350 office visits scheduled during the next two
days. The group met Monday night to strategize.
The mission is to push for the continued funding of NASA’s space
exploration missions and hold off cuts.
It’s a tough sell in this town. While many in Congress say they support
manned space flight, it’s not a priority for many. It’s always a
challenge for this group to remind those who control the budget that
there are benefits of space exploration in everyday life. Those walking
the Hill Tuesday and Wednesday will do what they can to point out the
many benefits of the U.S. space program, which has contributed to
medical research and to the creation of new environmental products.
(5/21)
U.S.-Soviet Model Urged For U.S.-China
Space Cooperation (Source: Aviation Week)
As China prepares for another launch to its Tiangong-1 mini-space
station next month, political scientists see the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test
Project (ASTP) as a model for bringing China into “the family of
space-faring nations.” The ASTP was a symbolic gesture that encouraged
an eventual Cold War thaw. The docking had little technical
significance, but it laid the groundwork for a thaw in U.S.-Soviet
relations that extended into strategic arms control and ultimately led
to the merger of the two superpowers' space station programs.
But China, the only other nation to orbit its own crews, is blocked by
U.S. law from even visiting the station. The U.S. and China are
forbidden to cooperate in civil space on human-rights grounds, by
language Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) attached to NASA's appropriations bill.
Military space cooperation between the two nations is actually easier,
to the extent that the Pentagon's Africa Command has been using
Chinese-owned Apstar-7 for commercial communications links.
“U.S. restrictions on working with China in space are coming across as
the U.S. is a bit of the mean girl in the international space
community, as though we think we can just decide who is in the clique
and who is not,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, a political scientist at the
U.S. Naval War College, who stressed that she was expressing her own
opinion as an academic. Click here.
(5/20)
Kiwis Spend Almost $2 Million on
Tickets to Space (Source: Showroom)
Kiwis have spent more than $1.8 million on space travel to embark on
flights with the world’s first commercial space service. New Zealanders
are able to secure their tickets with the Virgin Galactic service
through its travel partner House of Travel. Interest in these
history-making flights is expected to increase as Kiwis learn more of
the opportunity to aboard a space-bound aircraft.
Eight Kiwis nationwide have purchased tickets for the rocket-powered
flights, which will see would-be astronauts view the planets and stars
from above the Earth’s atmosphere, while feeling the unique sensation
of zero gravity. House of Travel Chief Executive Officer Mark O’Donnell
couldn’t be happier for the New Zealand-owned company to have the
opportunity to take Kiwis to space. (5/22)
Jacksonville Company Wins Contract for
Stennis Rocket Test Stand (Source: Jacksonville Business Journal)
Sauer Inc. of Jacksonville has won a $6.5 million NASA task order to
renovate the B-2 space rocket test stand at Stennis Space Center in
Mississippi. Sauer expects to break ground in late spring and complete
the project in 10 months. The B-2 Test Stand at Stennis was originally
built to test Saturn rocket stages that propelled astronauts to the
moon. It is being completely renovated to test NASA’s new Space Launch
System’s core stage in late 2016 and early 2017. (5/21)
Giant Test Stands Will Rise at
Marshall as Space Launch System Grows (Source: Huntsville Times)
NASA engineers are building on the historic foundation of rocket
testing in Huntsville - literally - as they prepare for critical stress
tests on the core of Space Launch System, America's next deep-space
rocket. Two large new test stands are being designed for Marshall Space
Flight Center, and one of those stands will be built atop the
bedrock-deep foundation of the stand Wernher von Braun used to test the
massive F-1 Saturn V engines.
These new tests won't shake the ground across Huntsville as those
Saturn V engine tests did, because NASA does its engine testing now in
the vast open space of the Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi.
But the tests in Huntsville will be critical to the new rocket meeting
its tight flight schedule, and the testing program itself is a
complicated choreography. (5/21)
There's Still Science on Space Station
(Source: Motherboard)
During his five month sojourn in space, Hadfield himself conducted more
than 130 experiments. He and his crew of five flight engineers –
Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov, Alexander Misurkin, and Roman
Romanenko; and two NASA astronauts, Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn –
set a record by spending 71 hours in one week on scientific research.
One experiment called InSPACE—an acronym for “Investigating the
Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from Colloidal Emulsions"—has
engineering implications on Earth. At the heart of this experiment are
fluids called magnetorheological suspensions, fluids containing
ellipsoid shaped particles that change the physical properties of that
fluid in response to magnetic fields.
These fluids are classified as smart materials because they can
transition into a solid-like state by forming a criss-cross
microstructure in the presence of a magnetic field. Sort of like the
one of Earth. These fluids are already used as vibration dampening
systems that can be turned on or off (such as those used in high-end
car suspensions), but the data gathered on the ISS will help engineers
use the material to build building and bridges that can better
withstand earthquakes. (5/22)
Could 3-D-Printed Food Fuel a Mission
to Mars? (Source: Washington Post)
NASA can send robots to Mars, no problem. But if it’s ever going to put
humans on the Red Planet, it has to figure out how to feed them over
the course of a years-long mission. So the space agency has funded
research for what could be the ultimate nerd solution: a 3-D printer
that creates entrees or desserts at the touch of a button. Yes, it’s
another case of life imitating “Star Trek” (remember the food
replicator?). In this case, though, the creators hope there is an
application beyond deep-space pizza parties. The technology could also
be used to feed hungry populations here on Earth.
Texas-based Systems and Materials Research Corp. has been selected for
a $125,000 grant from NASA to develop a 3-D printer that will create
“nutritious and flavorful” food suitable for astronauts, according to
the company’s proposal. The project — the details of which NASA plans
to finalize this week — was presented at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in
Washington earlier this month. At the presentation, Anjan Contractor,
an engineer at SMRC and the project manager, explained how the idea
originated: he had used a 3-D printer to print chocolate for his wife.
The chocolate experiment led the company to think about other kinds of
food that could be printed. A space-food printer doesn’t actually exist
yet — it’s still a concept, which the company hopes to develop by the
end of the year using NASA’s grant money. The space agency’s current
astro-food system “is not adequate in nutrition or acceptability
through the five-year shelf life required for a mission to Mars, or
other long duration missions,” NASA spokesman David Steitz said in an
e-mailed statement. (5/21)
Branson Announces Plans for Christmas
Launch From New Mexico (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
Virgin Group billionaire Sir Richard Branson may be dreaming not of a
white Christmas, but a space-y one. Branson, in remarks last week
during a trip to Dubai, said the first public Virgin Galactic flight
would happen Dec. 25. Asked about Branson's remarks, a publicist for
Virgin Galactic sent a company statement noting that the start date for
carrying paying passengers has always hinged upon safety. Other factors
are the successful completion of its test-flight program and the FAA
issuing a key license. (5/21)
Space Companies Warn Against Excessive
Government Oversight (Source: Daily Breeze)
Aerospace executives on Tuesday praised the newfound autonomy they have
enjoyed from NASA in sending spacecraft to the International Space
Station, but warned against excessive government oversight of the
burgeoning industry for launch vehicles and crew capsules. During a
panel discussion Tuesday at the Space Tech Expo in Long Beach,
representatives of various aerospace companies commended NASA for
allowing the private sector to lead the way on the critical program.
"Before, NASA controlled all aspects of development, including design,
testing," said Garrett Reisman, who heads SpaceX's Dragon space capsule
program. "Now NASA says, 'Here are our main requirements and you have
to figure out how to do that.' ... These commercial principles are
really key to our success, whether it be cargo or crew." Reisman said
there is a risk that the space agency would revert to its old way of
doing business.
Returning to NASA's traditional role of controlling every step of
development represents "the biggest threat to the success of the
program," said Reisman, a former astronaut. Boeing Vice President John
Mulholland said his company has benefited from NASA's reduced oversight
on the Boeing crew capsule known as the CST-100. This relative autonomy
has allowed Boeing to made decisions quickly without having to wait for
NASA to give direction. (5/21)
Panel has Doubts on Proposed Future of
NASA Programs (Source: Galveston Daily News)
Back to the moon? Or snag an asteroid and send astronauts there? Or
should NASA go for it all and plan an all out mission to Mars? Those
are the decisions being contemplated by Congress as it eyes not only
NASA’s every-three year reauthorization legislation, but also its 2014
fiscal year budget. As NASA’s top officials promote President Barack
Obama’s vision for missions that include unmanned spacecraft to lasso a
small asteroid and bring it to a near-moon orbit for manned
experiments, many on Capitol Hill have their doubts.
“Why would some NASA officials ignore their own experts… and forge
ahead haphazardly with this asteroid retrieval mission?” U.S. Rep.
Steven Palazzo, R-MS, chairman of the House subcommittee on Space,
asked a panel of experts during hearings on NASA’s plans for missions
beyond low-earth orbit Tuesday on Capitol Hill. The decision left most
on the panel stumped, too. Douglas Cooke called the directive
announcement a “backwards” way of approaching the mission. “It is not
apparent that the administration’s asteroid retrieval proposal was
developed based on consultation with stakeholders in the broader space
community,” he said. He prefers a lunar mission.
But Louis Friedman, co-founder of The Planetary Society and the
co-leader of the Keck Institute for Space Studies Asteroid Retrieval
Mission Study at Caltech, said the technologies that would come from
the proposed mission would advance the U.S. space program and serve as
an inspiration for the next generation of space travel. “This mission
may be one of the most exciting and interesting one in the history of
exploration, certainly at least since the Apollo project,” Friedman
said during his hearing testimony. (5/21)
What the Mission to Lasso an Asteroid
Means for Mars (Source: Galveston Daily News)
“Many of the technical details are yet to be determined, but
essentially it allows us to meet the president’s goal of reaching an
asteroid by 2025,” NASA spokeswoman Rachel Kraft said. “The mission
will also teach us a lot of information that we need to get to Mars ...
We will redirect it to a stable orbit in trans-lunar space... This is
basically an orbit where the asteroid would be stable, so we are not in
danger of it going toward Earth or being dislodged. It would stay in
that system and make it possible for humans to visit.”
Part of the logic behind this is this initiative allows NASA to align
ongoing activities across several directorates, human exploration and
operations led by William Gerstenmaier; space technology led by Michael
Gazarik and NASA’s science mission directorate led by John Grunsfeld,
Kraft said. “It takes advantage of a large swath of NASA expertise.”
Since 2010, NASA has been following a flexible path to send people to
Mars. That path comes from President Obama’s Augustine Committee. They
specified that path as an option if NASA’s budget were increased by $3
billion per year. NASA never obtained that budget increase. In April
2010, President Obama selected an astronaut rendezvous with an asteroid
by 2025 as a target on the flexible path to Mars. This new 2013 NASA
asteroid mission reduces danger to astronauts because mission duration
will be measured in days or weeks instead of months. (5/21)
With New Mini-Satellites, Special Ops
Takes Its Manhunts Into Space (Source: WIRED)
In September, the U.S. government will fire into orbit a two-stage
rocket from a Virginia launchpad. Officially, the mission is a
scientific one, designed to improve America’s ability to send small
satellites into space quickly and cheaply. But the launch will also
have a second purpose: to help the elite forces of U.S. Special
Operations Command hunt down people considered to be dangerous to the
United States and its interests.
For years, special operators have used tiny “tags” to clandestinely
mark their prey — and satellites to relay information from those
beacons. But there are areas of the world where the satellite coverage
is thin, and there aren’t enough cell towers to provide an alternative.
That’s why SOCOM is putting eight miniature communications satellites,
each about the size of a water jug, on top of the Minotaur rocket
that’s getting ready to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. (5/21)
Private Space Industry Can't Get to
Mars Without NASA (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
While the Mars rover Curiosity is discovering the building blocks of
life on the Red Planet, many are equally excited about another
development: Commercial companies have finally discovered profit in
space. This is no small feat, considering the enormous risk and
technical hurdles. With years of experience building
government-designed rockets and communications satellites, private
companies took the first cautious steps by funding research labs that
hitched rides on the NASA space shuttle.
In fact, I was the first private astronaut working on techniques to
manufacture new medicines in space on three shuttle flights in 1984-85.
Now companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are building their own
rockets, making profits by launching satellites and sending supplies to
the International Space Station. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has already
boasted plans to build a new rocket that could send citizen colonists
to Mars several years ahead of NASA's schedule, and for only $500,000
per ticket. That's dirt cheap. Click here.
(5/22)
Witnesses Debate Strategic Stepping
Stones to Mars (Source: House Science Committee)
The Subcommittee on Space held a hearing to examine possible options
for the next steps in human space flight and how these options move the
U.S. closer to a human mission to Mars and beyond. Witnesses debated
whether the Obama administration’s proposed asteroid rendezvous mission
is a better precursor for an eventual manned mission to Mars compared
to other missions, such as a return to the Moon. Click here.
(5/21)
China Space Program Ramping Up
Capabilities, Pentagon Says (Source: Space.com)
China’s growing space prowess shows no signs of slowing, the U.S.
Department of Defense said in its annual report to Congress on military
and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China. The
Pentagon has been carefully monitoring China’s space activities, and
pointed out that last year, the country conducted a total of 18 space
launches and expanded its space-based intelligence, surveillance,
reconnaissance, navigation, meteorological and communications satellite
constellations. Click here.
(5/22)
Volusia Town Hears Pitch for
Spaceport, But Questions Remain (Source: Daytona Beach
News-Journal)
Oak Hill wants more details before it takes a stand on the development
of the "Shiloh" commercial spaceport on the city's southern doorstep.
Space Florida is seeking community support on plans to construct the
public-private launch facility on 150 acres of land. While no specific
site has been chosen, property south of Oak Hill, but north of Haulover
Canal on the Volusia-Brevard county line is being discussed.
Many Oak Hill residents still remember when family and friends lived at
Shiloh, before the federal government came in during the 1950s and took
over the property along the road to Playalinda, either by purchase or
eminent domain, to build a space center at Cape Canaveral. Today, a
couple of old cemeteries remain on the property and federal officials
say the area is rich in historic and environmental resources.
Local fishermen, boaters, birdwatchers and others who frequent
Canaveral National Seashore and the Merritt Island National Wildlife
Refuge fear that closures to the area for commercial launches -- like
those that took place during shuttle launches -- would prevent public
access to the waterways and beaches. Oak Hill's neighbor to the north,
Edgewater, took up the matter at its May 6 City Council meeting and
voiced unanimous support for the proposal. (5/21)
Photos Show Efforts to Preserve
Historic Apollo Rocket Engines (Source: WIRED)
Starting this Friday, you can watch the conservation of historical
Apollo Saturn V engines that were recovered from the bottom of the
ocean. That is, if you live near or are planning to visit Hutchinson,
Kansas. Those of us who aren’t going to the Kansas Cosmosphere and
Space Center anytime soon can check out these cool images of the
preservation efforts, supplied by the museum. A team organized by Jeff
Bezos picked up the artifacts, which blasted off from Florida and
carried U.S. astronauts to the moon, after they spent more than 40
years lying on the ocean floor. The Bezos team still doesn’t know
precisely which Apollo mission these particular engines came from.
Click here.
(5/21)
NASA Banking on Solar Electric
Propulsions’s Slow but Steady Push (Source: Space News)
The list of technologies NASA says it needs for a crewed mission to
Mars notionally envisioned for the 2030s includes large-scale electric
propulsion systems that dwarf those used today aboard many satellites.
“The type of solar electric propulsion that is flying now, at the 4
kilowatt or 5 kilowatt level, is very useful for doing things like
station keeping,” said David Manzella, an engineer with the solar
electric propulsion group at NASA’s Glenn Research Center near
Cleveland. “But it doesn’t provide enough thrust to move heavy payloads
in short times,”
Neither would the first in a series of scaled-up solar electric systems
NASA is working on now, which are being paid for by the agency’s Space
Technology Mission Directorate. Just as NASA envisions sending
astronauts to a relocated asteroid before leaping on to Mars, it has
also planned an intermediate step between the small, electric attitude
control systems of today and the massive space tugs of tomorrow: a
system that generates between 25 kilowatts and 30 kilowatts of power,
and that would be first flown in space between 2016 and 2019, Manzella
said. (5/20)
Despite DC Budget Woes, NASA Still
Deserves Support (Source: Galveston Daily News)
The Citizens for Space Exploration, a multistate grass roots
organization established to keep NASA’s exploration programs funded is
in Washington, D.C., this week, making its best case to the 113th
Congress. They’ll remind lawmakers of how much our investments in space
exploration improve our lives, our well-being and our future. Sadly,
though, this has become a sort of annual booster shot whose
effectiveness wears off too quickly as the annual federal budget
process bogs down in partisan acrimony.
Even with the heroic efforts of citizen advocates like this, NASA’s
funding has gone steadily backward in recent years as a result of
continuing resolutions, omnibus bills and sequestration that delay,
dilute and ultimately cripple multiyear programs. Nonetheless, this
kind of advocacy is essential and it must be done every year, again and
again, as long as NASA is required to annually justify the programs
they are charged with. Without them, we would truly be lost in space.
There is, however, a different feeling about all of this, this year.
While Washington tries to decide if America can afford to lead the
world in space exploration for at least another year, the space
industry itself is adapting to make sure America stays in the race.
Call it Space Race 2.0. The newest players have catchy names like
Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin. Some are more
traditional like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ATK and Orbital Sciences.
(5/21)
Space Research Leaves Some Landless in
India (Source: Deccan Chronicle)
India’s premier space agency has not kept its promise made ages ago to
a few hapless earthlings while taking away their lands for building its
rocket-launching pad at Sriharikota. ISRO in 1971 had acquired over
3,500 hectares of farmlands and houses at Sriharikota for building the
Satish Dhawan Space Center. It promised the landowners monetary
compensation for taking away their properties. There are still many who
complain they got nothing yet. (5/21)
Aldrin on Why We Should Go to Mars
(Source: Smithsonian.com)
To send humans back to the moon would not be advancing. It would be
more than 50 years after the first moon landing when we got there, and
we’d probably be welcomed by the Chinese. But we should return to the
moon without astronauts and build, with robots, an international lunar
base, so that we know how to build a base on Mars robotically.
We’ve learned, with the robots Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of
Mars, that you can’t control them adequately from the Earth. What we’ve
done in five years on Mars could be done in one week—that’s a
significant advance—if we had human intelligence in orbit around Mars.
It’s much, much easier to send people there for a year and a half and
then bring them back, before sending them back later to permanently
land on Mars. (5/21)
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