January 23 News Items

Editorial: Still Spaced Out (Source: Florida Today)
It’s T-minus six days and counting to the Florida presidential primary and candidates are hustling for votes along the Space Coast. But anyone hoping to hear the candidates express strong support for NASA’s plan to build new rocket and manned spacecraft fleets to return to the moon has been sorely disappointed. The lack of attention is lamentable when the candidates are standing in the shadow of the historic launch pads that carry humans off the planet. Lamentable for what they could be saying about how the project fits into the nation’s mood for a new direction, and how it could create cutting-edge high technology industries and jobs, provide a long-term economic boost and help turn our children into 21st century scientists and engineers.

It’s certain Florida will be a key battleground in the fall campaign, at which time the party nominees may realize the space program’s importance to our state and the nation. We certainly hope so. If any issue deserves bipartisan support it’s NASA, which from the days of Apollo to the present has given us industries and technological spin-offs that have become part of our everyday lives. Today’s presidential candidates would be wise to have John F. Kennedy's kind of vision and not be afraid to show it.

General Dynamics 4Q Profit Surges (Source: AP)
General Dynamics said higher sales of combat vehicles to the Army and corporate jets pushed fourth-quarter earnings up 42 percent, but the defense contractor's 2008 outlook fell short of Wall Street forecasts. Net income jumped to $579 million in the three months ended Dec. 31, from $408 million in the year-ago period. The 2006 quarterly results included a 13-cent charge due largely to the company's sale of a coal mining operation. Sales rose 15 percent to $7.52 billion, but missed Wall Street's estimate of $7.55 billion. General Dynamics forecast profit of $5.55 to $5.65 per share in 2008, citing a funded backlog of $37.2 billion at year's end. That forecast was lower than the $5.73 per share expected by analysts.

ULA Wins $505.3M Rocket Deal (Source: AP)
A joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin has won a $505.3 million Air Force contract to supply launch services using the Delta IV rocket, which can put satellites and other payloads into space. The United Launch Alliance will supply services using Delta IV rockets to launch satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. The United Launch Alliance operates the Delta IV family of rockets, which were developed by Boeing, and the Atlas V family of rockets, which were developed by Lockheed Martin.

Astronaut Survey: No Launch Day Drinking (Source: AP)
NASA said Wednesday that a survey of astronauts and flight surgeons found no evidence of launch day drinking by crew members, despite a report last year of two cases of drunkenness. The anonymous survey uncovered a single case of "perceived impairment" by someone just a day or more from blasting into space, and it turned out to be a reaction between prescription medicine and alcohol. NASA officials, citing medical privacy, refused to say when or where the episode occurred, only that it happened on one of the final days leading up to launch but not on launch day. The crew member ultimately was cleared for flight and rocketed into space. The officials said they did not know whether the specified case was one of the two alleged cases of astronaut drunkenness cited in a report by outside medical experts last summer.

Virgin Galactic Unveils Spacecraft (Source: ThisIsLondon)
The Virgin Galactic spacecraft, which was being unveiled in New York today, is already under construction. Test flights are expected to begin in June, with commercial flights starting 12 months later. More than 200 potential astronauts are believed to have already paid deposits for the $200,000 flights, including actress Victoria Principal, scientist Stephen Hawking, and Princess Beatrice. Flights will last for two hours and will include four and a half minutes of weightlessness. The 60ft ship is expected to reach an altitude of 110km - 68 miles - and will be launched from underneath a mother ship called White Knight.

Dissent Grows as Scientists Oppose NASA’s New Moon Mission (Source: Popular Mechanics)
NASA's current plan for manned space exploration focuses on establishing a base on the moon, as a vital stepping stone for a visit to Mars. The initiative has been trumpeted by the Bush administration, which wants the first mission to launch by 2020. But trouble is brewing as a growing group of former mission managers, planetary scientists and astronauts argues against any manned moon mission at all. One alternative, they say: Send astronauts to an asteroid as a better preparation for a Martian landing.

The dissenters plan to gather in mid-February at a meeting of the Planetary Society at Stanford University. “We want to get a positive recommendation to the new administration,” says Planetary Society executive director Louis D. Friedman. He supports an eventual mission to Mars, but argues that the current moon scheme was selected with inadequate debate. “If you said ‘humans’ and ‘Mars’ [to NASA officials] in the same sentence, you would receive a figurative slap on the face, and then four months later [the moon-to-Mars plan] was the main point on a viewgraph at the highest levels.”

NOAA Expresses Concern over Satellite Contractor Delay (Source: NOAA)
NOAA’s top official expressed concern that a contractor’s slow development of a critical new sensor will delay its delivery for a scheduled launch of a precursor mission for the National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., speaking at a meeting of the tri-agency NPOESS Executive Committee (EXCOM), pointed to continued problems with the contractor’s performance on the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which is scheduled to fly on NASA’s NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP).

New Russian Spaceport to Send Manned Flights by 2018 (Source: AFP)
Russia, whose space program relies heavily on a base in neighbouring Kazakhstan, is to build its own launch site for manned flights by 2018, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said. The new Vostochny base in the Amur region of southeast Russia, bordering China, will be an alternative to the Baikonur base, a Soviet-built facility that Russia now leases from Kazakhstan. "To use a military term, we will open a 'second front,'" Ivanov said. "By 2016 the new cosmodrome should be ready for rocket launches of any type and by 2018 it is planned that we will also be able to make manned flights from there," Ivanov said.

NASA is Confident Sensor Troubles Fixed (Source: Florida Today)
NASA believes it has put sensor signal problems behind it, and next week the agency will begin moving toward the Feb. 7 launch of Atlantis on a construction mission to the International Space Station. At Kennedy Space Center, technicians are shaping and coating foam over a replaced sensor connector at Pad 39A. The repair work will be finished by Friday, and normal shuttle processing will begin next week.