November 20 News Items

New Chinese Rocket Set to Blast Off by 2013 (Source: China Daily)
China's next-generation launch vehicles for heavyweight satellites or space stations will be ready to blast off by 2013, a senior official has said. The Long March 5 launch vehicle, to be made in the Binhai New Area of the northern coastal city of Tianjin, will be 59.4 meters long, with a launch weight of 643 tons and a lift-off thrust of 825 tons. The diameter will be increased to 5 meters from 3.35 meters in the current-generation Long March 3 series.

Commercial Spacesuit Tailors Hire NASA Contest Winner (Source: Space.com)
Peter Homer, an out-of-work aerospace engineer and one-time sailmaker from Maine who won $200,000 from NASA this May for an astronaut glove stitched together on his dining room table, has been hired by a start-up hoping to outfit private space explorers. Los Angeles-based Orbital Outfitters intends to put Homer's engineering and sewing skills to work on a pressurized space suit for suborbital space flyers. A prototype of that suit, dubbed the Industrial Suborbital Space Suit-Crew, was unveiled at the X Prize Cup in New Mexico in late October.

Homer, a mechanical and aeronautical and astronautical engineer with degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Stanford University, took home $200,000 in NASA's first-ever Astronaut Glove Challenge by demonstrating that a glove he designed could perform at least as well as NASA's current space glove – built by Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover – in a variety of dexterity, flexibility and durability tests held over a two-day period.

Obama Plan: Reward Teachers, Lengthen School Time (Source: Baltimore Sun)
Barack Obama is planning to unveil an education plan today that would make affordable pre-school programs more widely available, offer pay incentive programs for effective teachers, and lengthen the teaching day or the school year. The $18 billion annual program would be offset by savings and cuts in federal agencies, including NASA. The cost would come partly from delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years, cutting costs in the government procurement process and auctioning surplus federal property. The Obama plan also cites "closing the CEO pay deductibility loophole" and ending the Iraq war as other ways to pay for the program.

Americans Overestimate Cost of NASA (Source: AOL News)
Two astronauts from the international space station took a spacewalk to prepare the station for a December docking with the space shuttle. Sounds pricey. In fact, everything about NASA sounds pricey. For instance, NASA said it would need an additional $2 billion to speed up construction of the successor to the space shuttle. So how much does all this cost taxpayers? Apparently, not as much as people think.

A recent survey revealed that the average American believes a quarter of the country's public purse goes towards funding NASA. The survey found that most people reported the belief that NASA is almost as well funded as the military. The Department of Defense receives roughly 21 percent of the nation's budget, but NASA gets something like 0.6 percent. Upon learning this, one survey participant replied "No wonder we haven't gone anywhere!".

Ron Paul's Position on NASA (SourceL: AOL News)
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, believes that whatever we're paying for NASA, it's too much. In fact, David Hill of The Hill reports that Paul might even lose his House seat in Texas, in part, because of his consistent opposition to funding for NASA and his desire to eliminate the agency.

Lou Dobbs Entering Presidential Race? (Source: AOL News)
CNN News anchor Lou Dobbs, founder of Space.com and a long-time space advocate, is rumored to be considering a run for the presidency. The nightly purveyor of common sense when it comes to dollars and cents, Mr. Dobbs portrays himself as centrist and a champion of the middle class. His signature topics (and the ones that generate the highest ratings) are illegal immigration, and what he considers bogus free trade agreements.

Bargain Basement Satellites (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
A NASA team has built a small, low-cost satellite called FASTSAT, and it's almost ready to fly. The FASTSAT team built this prototype in a mere 10½ months for the relatively thrifty sum of $4 million. The FASTSAT Project Manager led a team already experienced in low-cost, quick turnaround balloon missions. "In the balloon program, people know how to take risks and do things more quickly," he says. "Quicker build time means less labor charges, and that's one of the keys to keeping costs down."

Balloon missions taught the team some specific ways to save time and money. For instance, they used commercial off-the-shelf components, which are readily available and cheaper than specially ordered parts. A new class of very low cost launch vehicles (such as SpaceX's Falcon 1) has opened doors for inexpensive satellites and instruments. "You wouldn't put an expensive payload on an inexpensive rocket - it's a risk issue. You'd use an inexpensive bus to fly an inexpensive instrument on an inexpensive rocket," said the project manager.

China Aiming to Replace Foreign Satellites (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
China is aiming to replace all its imported communications and broadcast satellites with home-made ones by 2010 as part of efforts to reduce its reliance on overseas technology. The nation will step up research and development of these satellites as just one out of the 12 currently in use is Chinese-made. As China has become an economic powerhouse in recent decades, it has been intent on trying to phase out its use of overseas technology in a wide range of sectors for financial as well as national interest reasons.

Partnership in Space Critical for National Security (Source: GWU)
Collaborating with other nations on space exploration is vital to America’s national security, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said. “Space exploration, whether human or robotic, is the grandest and most technically challenging expression of human endeavor,” Griffin said. “I think it is in our nation’s best interest to work together, learn as much from each other as different countries and cultures about how to go about solving unique problems presented by the exploration of space.”

Griffin described America’s history of partnership with other nations on space exploration. He described the collaboration between 16 nations including the United States, Russia, the countries of the European space agency, Japan and Canada on the International Space Station as “the largest task ever performed by the civilian agencies of the United States or our international partners.” “One day the International Space Station will be no more but I believe that the most important legacy of the ISS endeavor will be…the partnership itself,” Griffin said.

Valve, Atlantis Set for Launch (Source: Florida Today)
Kennedy Space Center crews fixed a helium valve in Atlantis' forward control system. The shuttle crew, in town for a practice countdown, confirmed Monday that launch remains on track for Dec. 6. The valve was stuck open in its normal position and was fixed by replacing a lug on ground equipment. Two European astronauts, Leopold Eyharts and Hans Schlegel, will fly aboard Atlantis. The flight has captured the attention of the European public, which funded the construction of the module they'll be delivering to the Space Station.

South Korea Plans Lunar Rocket by 2017 (Source: Xinhua)
South Korean government said Tuesday that it plans to develop a powerful two-stage rocket by 2017 to send a satellite to the moon. According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, South Korea plans to build and test a 300-ton Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 (KSLV-II) booster rocket and launch its first lunar exploration satellite in 2020. If the plan is successfully, South Korea will launch a lunar probe in 2025. South Korea plans to launch a satellite weighing about 100 kg every 3-4 years, and at least two smaller satellites every year.

Florida Companies Win NASA SBIR/STTR Contracts (Source: NASA)
NASA has awarded contracts to 302 small business proposals that address critical research and technology needs for agency programs and projects. Eight Florida projects won "Phase One" awards, including seven SBIR and one STTR. The STTR is a partnership with the University of Central Florida. The winners are:

1) Mnemonics, Inc. (STTR) of Orlando for Wireless, Passive Encoded Saw Sensors and Communication Links; 2) Tai-Yang Research Co. of Tallahassee for Novel Lightweight Magnets for Space Applications; 3) Advanced Materials Technology of Tampa for Novel Materials for Mirror Substrate in Space Telescopes; 4) Rini Technologies of Orlando for Lightweight and Energy Efficient Heat Pump; 5) Mainstream Engineering Corporation of Rockledge for Active Thermal Control System for Extreme Environments; 6) DMD Concepts of Rockledge for Chemically and Thermally Stable High Energy Density Silicone Composites; 7) New Span Opto-Technology of Miami for Foveated 3-D Imaging Rangefinder for Object Tracking; and 8) Design Interactive of Oviedo for a CogGauge.

In October, NASA also awarded three Florida-based SBIR "Phase Two" awards to: 1) Summation Research of Melbourne for Programmable High-Rate Multi-Mission Receiver for Space Communications; 2) Soneticom of West Melboune for Remote EMI Field Strength Mapping; and 3) APECOR of Orlando for Integrated Three-Port Converters for Compact and Efficient Power Management.