July 11 News Items

500 Jobs For NASA Employees Could Go Elsewhere (Source: WESH)
The Pentagon is holding off on plans to build military tanker planes in Melbourne and reopening bids on the project. The plans would've brought 500 new high-tech jobs along the Space Coast just as NASA's shuttle program was ending. Officials said that, at best, the local project will be delayed. At worst, jobs perfect for laid-off NASA workers could go elsewhere. A local job agency is open late and doing a lot of business with all the people looking for work. Now, there are fewer jobs on the horizon. (7/10)

Editorial: NASA Needs Steady Budget Allocations (Source: Florida Today)
He's the boss of NASA's Constellation program, charged with building a new fleet of spacecraft to take astronauts back the moon, and he cut to the chase Tuesday during a Cocoa Beach luncheon talk. He said a current move in Congress to boost NASA's funding $2 billion next year is great. But it won't close the five-year gap between the last shuttle flight in 2010 and Constellation's start in 2015 because budget shortfalls have already slowed the project. And it's too large and complex an animal to be sped-up with the same ease as pushing your foot down harder on the gas pedal. Click here to view the article. (7/10)

Telescope Reveals Young Galaxy with Surprising Star Formation Rate (Source: Science News)
Talk about a baby boom. Using several telescopes ranging from radio to the infrared, astronomers have discovered that a remote galaxy, 12.3 billion light-years away, is churning out 1,000 to 4,000 newborn stars a year. That makes the galaxy, seen as it appeared just when the cosmos was just 1.3 billion years old, the star-forming champ among galaxies in the early universe. In contrast, the modern Milky Way makes only about 10 new stars a year. Dubbed Baby Boom, the galaxy is thought to be an amalgam of galaxies that have smashed together, producing the prodigious star formation rate. (7/10)

Galileo Leads the Race Against Russia's Glonass (Source: RIA Novosti)
The European Commission has decided to start buying satellites and ground-based equipment for its Galileo satellite navigation project. By 2010, the system should comprise 30 satellites and a ramified ground infrastructure. Europe's independence from the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) will cost it 3.4 billion euros by 2013. But the European Commission thinks it is worth it. Good for Europe, but what about Russia's Glonass? In the mid-2000s it was declared a priority national project and a successful commercial undertaking capable of rivaling Europe's Galileo and America's GPS. In the past few years, though, we have seen that it cannot rival either. Moreover, it is not clear why Glonass is not progressing as fast as it should. Visit http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080710/113714563.html to view the article. (7/10)

Online Casino Reports Bets on Lunar Gambling (Source: PR Web)
Online Casino Reports lays a bet on the future of casino gambling, and donates to charity on the way. The online gambling portal has taken odds betting to a new realm entirely by placing a predictive wager on futuristic odds betting site, Long Bets, stating that there will be a casino on the moon by 2040. The prediction states that space tourism will be with us sooner than we think. And as gambling is gradually becoming more widespread and socially acceptable, it is not out of the question to expect a casino to arrive on the moon within the next thirty years. (7/10)

Diane Murphy Joins SpaceX as Vice President of Marketing and Communications (Source: SpaceX)
SpaceX has hird Diane Murphy as the company as Vice President of Marketing and Communications. Ms. Murphy assumes the newly created position with responsibility for all aspects of marketing and communications, including strategic planning, media relations, advertising, video and web content, exhibits and trade shows, community affairs, and event management, as well as serving as company spokesperson. (7/11)

EG&G Wins NASA Support Contract Worth Up to $153 Million (Source: San Francisco Business Times)
Engineering giant URS Corp., through its EG&G division, won a contract from NASA to support work at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. EG&G will do maintenance and operate facilities at the center, in Huntsville, in Northern Alabama, just a few miles south of the Tennessee border. The one year contract has four option years and is worth a maximum of $153 million. EG&G has done similar work at the center for 11 years. (7/11)

Lt. Gov. Folsom: Alabama's Bright Aerospace Future (Source: Birmingham Business Journal)
Alabama has a rich history in aerospace, aviation and defense. Typically, the term aerospace is used to refer to the industries that research, design, manufacture, operate and maintain vehicles moving through air and space. My office recently participated in the annual meeting of the Alabama Aerospace Industry Association in Mobile. The conference was a showcase of the positive statewide impact this industry is having in Alabama.

People around the country are recognizing the great value aerospace adds to Alabama and the role we have played in the industry. I have been honored to serve as national vice chairman of the Aerospace States Association, a national organization focused on the promotion of aerospace and aerospace-related issues. It gives me great pride to represent Alabama aerospace on this national committee comprised of lieutenant governors and their representatives from across the country. (6/27)

ViaSat Opens Office near Tampa International Airport (Source: Tampa Bay Business Journal)
With plans to hire up to 20 employees by the end of the year, ViaSat Inc. is set to open a new 6,000-square-foot office near the Tampa International Airport. ViaSat typically provides military communications through satellites. The Tampa location will be the company's 11th in the U.S. and will focus primarily on information assurance products that protect classified military and defense data while in transit over IP networks either when crossing classification domains or at rest on hard drives.

"Tampa is an ideal location for us because it is close to ViaSat customers and the region is a strong source of experienced engineers with Type 1 security clearance," said a ViaSat official. Fred Rhyne, director of the Tampa office, said the location of four major universities in the general region will help feed the talent needed to run ViaSat's location. In 2007, ViaSat signed a $33.5 million contract with Harris Corp. in Melbourne to construct additional hardware to be integrated into the Multifunctional Information Distribution Systems terminals that provide the U.S. military with secure, jam-resistant, digital tactical communications. (7/10)

America Losing its Lead in the Space Race (Source: Telegraph)
America is losing its lead in the space race as other countries challenge its dominance on the "final frontier", the head of NASA has warned. The more obvious rivals such as Russia and Europe have been joined by countries as diverse as Brazil, Israel and India, which are all launching their own space programs. A recent report on international space competitiveness by Futron, an American technology consultancy, concluded that "systemic and competitive forces threaten US space leadership". America had failed to keep track of how quickly the "globalization" of space was occurring, the study said. Meanwhile, as Asians and Europeans became increasingly enthusiastic about manned space exploration, public interest in the US was "limited", said the study. In 1998, the US launched 121 new satellites but that number had fallen to 53 - about 50 per cent of the total - by 2007. (7/10)

DOD Will Rebid Tanker Contract (Source: AIA)
The DOD said Wednesday it will reopen the bidding for a contract, which could be worth as much as $100 billion over 20 years, to replace the Air Force's fleet of aerial refueling tankers. Top officials indicated they want the competition conducted quickly, and the Air Force plans to issue a revised request for proposals late this month or in August. The Air Force chose a team led by Northrop Grumman, and Boeing protested the award. A Government Accountability Office report later found the Air Force made serious errors during the contract competition. (7/10)

Magellan Aerospace Wins Lockheed Martin Orion Contract (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
Magellan Aerospace has been awarded a contract to build the development heat shields for the Orion Space Shuttle replacement program by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Division in Denver, Colorado. Magellan's Aeronca facility in Middletown, Ohio, will develop the lightweight titanium honeycomb heat shield panels that help protect the space capsule from temperature extremes. (7/10)