July 26 News Items

In Brevard, High-Quality NASA Positions Boost Salary Average (Source: Florida Today)
Want to earn more money? Getting a job with the federal government might be a good start. Government payroll data for most federal employees in Brevard County reveals that they made more than twice as much as private sector workers here. The presence of Kennedy Space Center and its cadre of uniquely skilled specialty workers who command above-average pay drives the difference. The big investment in people highlights why the looming retirement of the space shuttle and the transition to a new moon program is getting so much attention from government and economic development leaders.

Federal workers in Brevard on average earned $85,984 in 2007. Overall, Brevard workers earned an average of $39,230 last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. NASA was the largest federal employer locally with 2,199 workers. They earned on average $91,383 in 2007. The federal government directly employs few of the service-sector workers who make up a large portion of the workforce locally. Instead, most of those jobs -- such as security guards, food-service workers and general maintenance -- have been farmed out to private contractors. (7/25)

Harvest the Sun — From Space (Source: New York Times)
As we face $4.50 a gallon gas, we also know that alternative energy sources — coal, oil shale, ethanol, wind and ground-based solar — are either of limited potential, very expensive, require huge energy storage systems or harm the environment. There is, however, one potential future energy source that is environmentally friendly, has essentially unlimited potential and can be cost competitive with any renewable source: space solar power. Science fiction? Actually, no — the technology already exists. A space solar power system would involve building large solar energy collectors in orbit around the Earth. These panels would collect far more energy than land-based units, which are hampered by weather, low angles of the sun in northern climes and, of course, the darkness of night.

Once collected, the solar energy would be safely beamed to Earth via wireless radio transmission, where it would be received by antennas near cities and other places where large amounts of power are used. The received energy would then be converted to electric power for distribution over the existing grid. Government scientists have projected that the cost of electric power generation from such a system could be as low as 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is within the range of what consumers pay now. Visit http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/opinion/23smith.html to view the article. (7/23)

California Governor Praises NASA's 'Superstar' in Fire Effort (Source: CSA)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger credited an unmanned NASA aircraft Monday with helping save the Sierra foothills town of Paradise from a wildfire last week, calling the plane "one of the most exciting new weapons in our firefighting arsenal." Schwarzenegger was at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, getting a behind-the-scenes look at the help the aircraft has given to crews fighting more than 1,700 blazes that have blackened 829,000 acres of California this fire season. (7/25)

Lockheed Martin Team Demonstrates High Power Electric Propulsion System (Source: CSA)
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, partners in the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) Space Segment team has completed a successful demonstration of its new-generation High Power Hall Current Thruster (HPHCT) electric propulsion system designed for use on the Air Force's TSAT constellation. TSAT will provide thousands of military users with wideband, highly mobile, beyond line-of-sight protected communications to support network-centric operations for the future battlefield. (7/25)

January 29 Date Expected for Next Falcon 1 Launch (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
The SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket will launch the Jumpstart mission for the U.S. Air Force Operationally Responsive Space initiative. The Jumpstart mission will fly the Trailblazer spacecraft built by SpaceDev, Inc. The mission was delayed from late June. (7/26)

Can People Live on Mars? (Source: RIA Novosti)
The discovery of ice immediately under the surface of Mars is increasing the chances of finding life there. Water is more than the key to the origin of life. Water on Mars raises intriguing questions. Can people build settlements on Mars? Is it suitable for colonization? Can we learn more about our planet by studying the Martian climate? Did Mars go through the same geological processes as Earth? Water plays a major role in answering these questions, or, to be more precise, the possibility of a water cycle on Mars. Moreover, the chemical analysis of the samples of the Martian ground, performed by the onboard laboratory of the spacecraft, showed that they contain all elements required for the origin and maintenance of life. (7/26)

Contractors Blast Awarding of NASA Spacesuit Deal (Source: Houston Business Journal)
A $180 million spacesuit contract awarded by NASA to Houston-based Oceaneering International Inc. last month has been called into question by the incumbent companies that lost out on the bid. Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp., and its partner, ILC Dover, filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office on July 14. The two companies, which have made spacesuits for NASA since the Apollo Program of the 1960s, said in their complaint that they did not get adequate information from NASA about how the contract award decision was made. (7/25)

XM-Sirius: Land Mines Aplenty (Source: Business Week)
A lot can happen in 17 months, especially when it comes to the digital music landscape. In the stretch between when Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio first announced their merger and it got final approval from regulators on July 25, the competitive field got crowded for the two satellite radio companies. The state of the economy worsened, forcing folks to think twice about spending on such services as $12.95 a month for radio. Advertising was pinched. And sales of new cars, many that include factory-installed satellite radios, tanked. Meanwhile, products that offer music to listeners, some for free, just kept coming. (7/26)

NASA Will Struggle When Shuttle Retires, Says Griffin (Source: Guardian)
One might think Michael Griffin has much to celebrate. The agency he heads receives $17 billion a year and is buoyed up by the kind of public support Americans normally reserve for celebrities and gods. He has presidential backing for the most ambitious plan to take humankind into the solar system. Griffin wants to see American astronauts back on the moon by 2020, though many in the industry say the agency is loathe to let 2019 - the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing - pass without fresh prints on the surface. Early work will focus on creating a permanent moon base. From there, NASA will turn its sights on the incomparable task of a crewed mission to Mars.

But Griffin has a problem, and it is one he is vexed by. To fly people to the moon, Nasa must develop a new rocket. And to pay for it, the agency must cancel all future space shuttle flights. It means that from 2010, for around five years, the nation that beat the Soviet Union in the space race will not only be grounded, but will have to pay Russia for seats aboard Soyuz if it wants to visit the space station it bankrolled and built. Griffin likens the space station to an Antarctic research base, which needs a regular supply of food and water, which suffers technical glitches, and needs to have its staff rotated on a regular basis for their sanity if nothing else. Both the US and Russian space agencies agree that at a minimum, it needs two independent supply chains - read rockets - to ensure the safety of the station and those on board.

And then there is the election. The vision for moon and Mars is tightly associated with the Bush administration and while it has widespread support, the new president may well decide to tinker with it. The Republican candidate John McCain has emphasised the need to ensure taxpayers are getting good value from Nasa, leading some to fear a return to the moon will be viewed as an expensive re-run of project Apollo. The Democrat Barack Obama has stated that NASA needs to be "redefined" and hopes to fund an $18 billion education program by delaying NASA's moonshot for five years. All of this, says Griffin, should not shift NASA's sights on the moon and Mars. "We're on the right path and it is of course fragile, but I think it's crucial we remain on it. (7/25)

NASA Moves Up Key Dates for Launch (Source: Florida Today)
NASA aims to accelerate the campaign to launch shuttle Atlantis in October by moving major pre-launch milestones up about four days each. If all goes well, the Atlantis move to the assembly building would come around Aug. 18 rather than Aug. 22. Rollout to the pad would come around Aug. 25. NASA wants to move up its next two launches to make sure the second flies before a window of opportunity closes in late November. (7/26)

Aliens? Moonwalker Believes (Source: Huntsville Times)
Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, has professed his belief that aliens exist and the government has covered up their visits to Earth. Not surprisingly, former NASA administrators and astronauts here give Mitchell's comments the same credence as the myth that the first moon walk was fake. Said Owen Garriott, who flew the Skylab 3 mission in 1973: "I'll give you three comments. First, he's a good friend of mine. Second, he's a very honest man. And third, he is laboring under self-delusion if he thinks he's seen extraterrestrial beings."

Ed Buckbee, former director of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and a former aide to Dr. Wernher von Braun, said it's the first time an astronaut has commented on aliens or UFOs. He saw Mitchell last summer in Florida at a book-signing and autograph session at Kennedy Space Center. "He seemed to have all his marbles," Buckbee said. "He was alert and attuned to what was going on." Garriott, though, said he was already aware of Mitchell's views. "I know he's had similar thoughts (that) he has considered in the past," he said. (7/25)

Court Sides with Insurers in Boeing Telesat Loss (Source: Space News)
Boeing's satellite division has lost the first round in a battle with its insurers over whether the company's insurance policy covers losses for "breach of contract, gross negligence and willful misconduct" that could potentially result from Boeing's arbitration dispute with satellite-fleet operator Telesat Canada. The Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., has agreed with Boeing's insurers that Boeing's insurance policy does not automatically cover losses resulting from the Telesat dispute. Telesat Canada and its insurers are demanding more than $385 million in damages and $10 million in lost profits from Boeing relating to the in-orbit failure of the Anik F1 telecommunications satellite, one of the six first-generation Boeing 702 satellites that contained a design defect in the solar array. (7/26)

Kayser-Threde To Build German Technology Satellite (Source: Space News)
GmbH will build Germany's TET-1 technology-demonstration satellite, which will be launched in 2010 under a contract that also includes launch services, Munich-based Kayser-Threde announced July 24. Under the contract with the German Aerospace Center, DLR, valued at 21 million euros ($33 million), Kayser-Threde will build the 120-kilogram TET-1 satellite and integrate its 11 experiments. TET-1 is scheduled for launch in mid-2010 as a piggyback payload aboard a Soyuz rocket operated from Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana. (7/26)

Orbital Gets $7.5 Million Missile Defense Contract (Source: Space News)
Orbital Sciences Corp. has received a $7.5 million sole-source contract from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for a foreign military sale to provide a target missile to Japan. The medium-range test missile will be used in Japan's third test of its ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Work on the target is expected to be completed by January 2010. Japan successfully conducted its first intercept test of the system in December and has another planned for late this year. The contract includes an option for one addition test missile at the same price. (7/26)

Parsons: KSC Work Force Focused on Safe Flyout (Source: Space News)
Kennedy Space Center Director Bill Parsons said employees of the Florida launch operations center understandably are worried about the space shuttle's looming 2010 retirement, but remain focused on the safe and successful execution of the program's 10 remaining flights. "Right now they are okay. I'm really more worried about next summer," Parsons said. "I think next summer we'll start to feel that mood change a little bit as they decide they need to go find something to do to support their families."

Parsons said younger employees by and large appear willing to stick around in hopes of finding a job in support of the Constellation program, while Kennedy's retirement-eligible employees are content to see the shuttle program through to its completion. Parsons said he is hearing the job-related anxiety most from Kennedy's mid-career employees with children in college and mortgages to pay. (7/26)

Orbital Sciences Weighs Human-Rating Taurus 2 (Source: Space News)
Orbital Sciences Corp. is studying what it would take to launch people aboard its planned Taurus 2 medium-lift rocket, according to a source inside the company. Orbital shifted Taurus 2 development into high gear in February after NASA awarded the company $171 million under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to demonstrate an ability to ferry cargo to and from the international space station. Orbital is shooting for a late 2010 demonstration flight of Taurus 2 and its Cygnus space tug.

Orbital's COTS proposal, unlike that of Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies — the only other NASA-funded COTS contender — did not include an option for conducting a crewed demonstration flight. NASA to date has been unenthusiastic about funding crew-carrying demo flights before one or both COTS contenders show that they can safely deliver cargo. However, legislation currently before Congress could force NASA to fund such a flight as a hedge against long-term reliance on Soyuz vehicles for transporting U.S. astronauts to and from the station.

An Orbital source told Space News that the company in early July began an internal study intended to identify the costs associated with human-rating the Taurus 2 and modifying the Cygnus system to carry a two-person crew. The source said the main market Orbital has in mind is space tourism but that a human-rated Taurus 2 also could be used for space station crew rotation flights if demand warrants. (7/26)