July 7, 2019

Halal Menu for First Emirati Astronaut's Space Mission is Revealed (Source: The National)
In just over two months, the UAE’s first astronaut will be launched into space. Hazza Al Mansouri’s journey to the International Space Station will be gruelling and the surroundings unfamiliar, but the Emirati will not be without the comforts of home. Space Food Laboratory, a Russian company that produces astronaut food for mass consumption on Earth, will prepare traditional dishes for the duration of Mr Al Mansouri’s journey.

Mr Al Mansouri will be provided with a menu of Emirati delicacies including canned halal salona – a chicken stew – the pounded meat and rice dish madrouba, and balaleet, sweetened vermicelli served with an omelette, for breakfast. The food will be processed in special pouches enabling it to be eaten at zero gravity, said the Russian state news agency Sputnik. It will be ready by mid-August for the launch on September 25. (7/7)

Apollo Moon Program Gave Black Activist a Chance to Rise From Janitor to Manager (Source: Florida Today)
Even as Theodis Ray poured concrete, layer after layer, at the Vehicle Assembly Building, he felt part of something bigger than the structure that would one day house the Apollo program's massive Saturn V rockets. Maybe that's because from helping build the iconic VAB to pushing a mop to working his way up to a union leadership role with United Launch Alliance, Ray poured his soul into seeking equality for people of color at Kennedy Space Center.

The young man from Titusville saw the early '60s action at KSC as a pathway to the future. A way out of dead-end jobs. The good, the bad and the downright nasty of those years leading up to Apollo 11: Ray remembers it all. The 76-year-old recalls the day that President John F. Kennedy, the man who laid out the visions for putting a man on the moon and for civil rights legislation, was assassinated. He went from constructing buildings for the space program to working inside one, employed as a janitor for a year and a half before joining the Marines in 1964.

Upon his return from Vietnam in 1968, Ray — told he'd never be a state trooper as he'd dreamed because of his race — headed to an employment agency. Launch pads were visible across the Indian River as he chose from a list of jobs for which he was qualified. And by 1969, as Apollo 11 loomed, Ray was working in a Boeing warehouse, issuing supplies and learning the ropes of logistics. He recalls meeting every astronaut of that era. Click here. (7/6)

Space Industry Electrical Engineer Jim Kennedy Running for Congress vs. Incumbent Bill Posey (Source: Florida Today)
Space industry employee Jim Kennedy of Merritt Island has entered the race for Congress in District 8. Kennedy, a Democrat, is challenging incumbent Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, who is in his sixth two-year term in Congress. Kennedy, 44, is an electrical engineer with the space industry giant United Launch Alliance. This is Kennedy's first run for public office. He said he has been thinking about making this run for awhile before officially becoming a candidate in June.

"I just watched how inept Congress has become," Kennedy said. "I just got tired of yelling at the TV. I want to get in Congress, and accomplish something. I want to make a difference." Asked to comment on Kennedy entering the race, Posey said: "I’m focused on being an effective congressman right now. But I look forward to a spirited debate with opponents next year, when the field is set."

Kennedy is a Navy veteran, and formerly worked in the utility industry and as a boat designer. Among Kennedy's initial campaign platforms that he has announced are: Supporting a universal health care system; Pushing environmental reforms, including requiring industry to adopt environmentally friendly technology and making polluters responsible for cleaning up their to messes; Increasing school funding and increasing teacher salaries; and Protecting the Second Amendment rights for gun owners, with restrictions for felons or people judged to be mentally ill. (7/6)

SpaceX Starhopper Tests Pushed Back (Source: Brownsville Herald)
The reason SpaceX keeps postponing tests of its “Starhopper” Starship prototype at the company’s Boca Chica Beach launch site is due to engine issues, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Specifically, according to a June 23 tweet from Musk, a component known as the “oxygen turbine stator” failed in testing of the liquid oxygen and methane-powered Raptor engine used in two previous tests at Boca Chica in April. SpaceX’s engine testing facility is located in McGregor.

Musk tweeted that the problem appeared to be mechanical and not the result of “metal combustion failure,” but would require an update to the design update and replacement of some parts. “Production is ramping exponentially, though,” he tweeted, “SN6 almost done. Aiming for an engine every 12 hours by end of year.” (7/5)

NASA Hopes The Future of the Space Station Is Commercial (Source: NPR)
When a rocket carrying the first module of the International Space Station blasted off from Kazakhstan in November of 1998, NASA officials said that the station would serve as an orbiting home for astronauts and cosmonauts for at least 15 years. It's now been over 18 years that the station has been continuously occupied by people. NASA spends between $3 billion and $4 billion a year operating the station and flying people back and forth. That's about half the agency's budget for human exploration of space.

The United States and the other participating nations have pledged to fund the station until at least 2024, but it will surely last longer than that. There's no way that the international partners would come together in five years and decide to just crash the station into the ocean to so that resources could be directed to other space goals. The trouble is, as the agency sets its sights on returning people to the moon, the aging station has become a financial burden. And it's not clear what its future holds.

So NASA has floated one money-saving idea: turn the space station over to the private sector. That's why, a few weeks ago, NASA officials held a big press event at the Nasdaq stock market's MarketSite in New York City. "NASA is opening the international space station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we've never done before," said the agency's chief financial officer, Jeff DeWit. "The commercialization of low Earth orbit will enable NASA to focus resources to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024, as the first phase in creating a sustainable lunar presence to prepare for future missions to Mars." (7/7)

“Gargantua” –The Black Hole That Could Swallow Our Solar System (Source: Daily Galaxy)
This past April, with an event that was as epic as the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, the world viewed its first image of what had once been purely theoretical, a black hole at the heart of galaxy M87 the size of our solar system, and bigger, with the mass of six and a half billion suns that was captured by a lens the size of planet Earth and 4,000 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomers have theorized that the galaxy that harbors the black hole grew to its massive size by merging with several other black holes in elliptical galaxy M87, the largest, most massive galaxy in the nearby universe thought to have been formed by the merging of 100 or so smaller galaxies. The M87 black hole’s large size and relative proximity, led astronomers to think that it could be the first black hole that they could actually “see.” Click here. (7/6)