Taking tomorrow off to do some Labor Day preparation stuff for Monday...
Will get it all done on Friday, and Saturday will get back to posting in this blog.
Hope all my readers have a good Labor Day weekend!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Space Exploration Has Put More Focus on Earth
From TriplePundit: Space Exploration Has Put More Focus on Earth
The last couple of days have been abuzz with the announcement of Neil Armstrong’s death. The obituaries and remembrances of Apollo 11′s iconic mission have flooded the media. That glorious mission that landed three men on the moon on July 20th 1969, which was thought impossible by many, was a fantastic success.
The achievement of the crew was relayed via television and its footage held the whole world spellbound. Back on Earth, they were treated like heroes, and the possibilities of what humankind can achieve triggered off the imaginations of generations to come.
However one of the things that is often overlooked is that the moon landings also put a sharp focus on Earth. All of space exploration has led to more knowledge about the cosmos but also the innate frailty of our planet. According to The Economist:
Up until then, the Earth didn’t have an image of delicacy. However, seeing the Earth as a lonely planet in the vast darkness of the universe triggered something in those men and women who have ventured past her safe boundaries. This sentiment has been translated with great efficacy to the many millions on the ground. Just as Carl Sagan evoked the beauty and fragility of the Earth, so too has every extra terrestrial exploration. It collectively has pounded home the fact that, in all our wonderings and wanderings, there is only one planet that supports life as we know it.
Every business, every war, every political regime, every idea, every thought, has all found its home here on Earth. Just as Man’s ingenuity managed to send a team to the moon so many decades so, so too will it be able to conquer the socio-economic quagmire we now face.
The last couple of days have been abuzz with the announcement of Neil Armstrong’s death. The obituaries and remembrances of Apollo 11′s iconic mission have flooded the media. That glorious mission that landed three men on the moon on July 20th 1969, which was thought impossible by many, was a fantastic success.
The achievement of the crew was relayed via television and its footage held the whole world spellbound. Back on Earth, they were treated like heroes, and the possibilities of what humankind can achieve triggered off the imaginations of generations to come.
However one of the things that is often overlooked is that the moon landings also put a sharp focus on Earth. All of space exploration has led to more knowledge about the cosmos but also the innate frailty of our planet. According to The Economist:
Perhaps the most unexpected consequence of the moon flights was a transformation of attitudes towards Earth itself. Space was indeed beautiful, but it was beauty of a severe, geometrical sort. Planets and stars swept through the cosmos in obedience to Isaac Newton’s mathematical clockwork, a spectacle more likely to inspire awe than love. Earth was a magnificent contrast, a jewel hung in utter darkness, an exuberant riot of chaos and life in a haunting, abyssal emptiness. The sight had a profound effect on the astronauts, and photos of the whole Earth, which had never been seen before, nourished the nascent green movement.Even before this, the Apollo 8 mission produced the first picture of the Earth from the space. This iconic photo of the earth rising from above the lunar landscape has since been named Earthrise and is one of the most iconic photos. In Life’s 100 Photographs that Changed the World, wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called it “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”
Up until then, the Earth didn’t have an image of delicacy. However, seeing the Earth as a lonely planet in the vast darkness of the universe triggered something in those men and women who have ventured past her safe boundaries. This sentiment has been translated with great efficacy to the many millions on the ground. Just as Carl Sagan evoked the beauty and fragility of the Earth, so too has every extra terrestrial exploration. It collectively has pounded home the fact that, in all our wonderings and wanderings, there is only one planet that supports life as we know it.
Every business, every war, every political regime, every idea, every thought, has all found its home here on Earth. Just as Man’s ingenuity managed to send a team to the moon so many decades so, so too will it be able to conquer the socio-economic quagmire we now face.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
: Neil Armstrong, first person to walk on moon, dies at 82
From LA Times: Neil Armstrong, first person to walk on moon, dies at 82
Neil Armstrong, the U.S. astronaut who was the first person to set foot on the moon, firmly establishing him as one of the great heroes of the 20th century, has died. He was 82.
Armstrong died following complications from cardiovascular procedures, his family announced Saturday.
When he made that famous step on July 20, 1969, he uttered a phrase that has been carved in stone and quoted across the planet: "That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind."
Armstrong spoke those words quietly as he gazed down at his, the first human footprint on the surface of the moon. In the excitement of the moment, the "a" was left out -- either because Armstrong omitted it or because it was lost in the static of the radio transmission back to Earth.
For the usually taciturn Armstrong, it was a rare burst of eloquence seen and heard by 60 million television viewers worldwide. But Armstrong, a reticent, self-effacing man who shunned the spotlight, was never comfortable with his public image as a courageous, historic man of action.
"I am, and ever will be, a white-sock, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer," Armstrong once told a National Press Club gathering.
Perhaps.
How many other nerdy engineers flew 78 combat missions as a Navy jet fighter pilot during the Korean War? Logged more than 1,000 hours as a test pilot in some of the world's fastest and most dangerous aircraft? Or became one of the first civilian astronauts and commanded Apollo 11, the first manned flight to land on the moon?
In the years that followed the flight of Apollo 11, Armstrong was asked again and again what it felt like to be the first man on the moon. In answering, he always shared the glory: "I was certainly aware that this was the culmination of the work of 300,000 to 400,000 people over a decade."
Neil Alden Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, on his grandfather's farm near Wapakoneta, Ohio.
His father, Stephen Armstrong, was a civil servant who audited county records in Ohio and later served as assistant director of the Ohio Mental Hygiene and Corrections Department. The family of his mother, Viola, owned the farm.
For more than a decade, his family lived in a succession of Ohio cities to accommodate his father's job before settling down in Wapakoneta.
After his father bought him a ride in a Ford Trimotor transport plane in 1936, Armstrong rushed home and began building model airplanes and a wind tunnel to test them.
A good student, Armstrong was a much-decorated Boy Scout and played the baritone horn in a school band. But aviation always came first.
In 1945, he started taking flying lessons, paying for them by working as a stock clerk at a drugstore. On his 16th birthday, he got his pilot's license but didn't yet have a driver's license.
Upon graduating from high school in 1947, he was awarded a Navy scholarship to Purdue University. When the Korean War started in 1949, Armstrong was called to active duty.
After flight training, Armstrong was assigned to the carrier Essex, flying combat missions over North Korea. Although one of the Panther jets he flew off the carrier was crippled by enemy fire, he nursed the plane back over South Korea before bailing out safely. Recognized as an outstanding pilot with a flair for leadership, he received three Air Medals before finishing his active duty in 1952.
He returned to Purdue and earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955
Within months, he was a civilian test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was soon stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, chronicled by author Tom Wolfe as the home to pilots with "The Right Stuff."
Aviators were closely scrutinized there, evaluated carefully as they pushed high-performance aircraft to "the edge of the envelope" and quizzed repeatedly about the scientific implications of their work.
"A lot of people couldn't figure Armstrong out," Wolfe wrote. "You'd ask him a question and he would just stare at you with those pale blue eyes of his.
"And you'd start to ask the question again, figuring that he hadn't understood, and -- click -- out of his mouth would come forth a sequence of long, quiet, perfectly formed, precisely thought-out sentences, full of anisotropic functions and multiple-encounter trajectories or whatever else was called for.
"It was as if his hesitations were just data punch-in intervals for his computer."
Armstrong had dated a sorority beauty queen, Janet Shearon, at Purdue, and they were married in 1956. For a while they lived in a small shack without indoor plumbing in the San Gabriel Mountains overlooking Edwards.
Children soon followed. A son, Eric, in 1957 and a daughter, Karen, two years later. The couple had a second son, Mark, in 1963, a year after Karen died of a brain tumor. True to form, Armstrong did not speak publicly about the tragedy or any other aspects of his family life.
Instead, he concentrated on his work.
By 1963, NASA was striving to fulfill President John F. Kennedy's goal of beating the Soviet Union in the space race and putting an American on the moon. Kennedy wanted some civilian astronauts, and Armstrong was one of the first.
In 1966, he made his first space flight, with fellow astronaut David R. Scott. Their ship, Gemini 8, was docking with an unmanned Agena rocket when a malfunctioning thruster sent the interlocked space vehicles tumbling uncontrollably.
Unperturbed, Armstrong disconnected the two vehicles, brought Gemini 8 back under control and made a safe emergency landing in the Pacific. NASA officials cited his "extraordinary piloting skill."
Two years later, a lunar landing training vehicle he was piloting suffered control failure just 200 feet off the ground. Armstrong ejected, parachuting to safety.
On Jan. 1, 1969, he was named commander of Apollo 11, the first manned spaceship scheduled to land on the moon. His crewmates were fellow space veterans Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins.
Five months later, the massive Apollo 11 spaceship was nudged carefully onto the launch pad at what was then called Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The vehicle was as long as a football field, tipped on end. It consisted of the command module Columbia, which would carry the three astronauts on their 238,000-mile journey and in which Collins would orbit the moon; the lunar lander the Eagle, which would carry Armstrong and Collins down to the lunar surface; and a huge Saturn booster rocket to hurl the whole thing into space.
On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off. Two and a half hours later, after an orbit and a half around the Earth, onboard rockets fired to send the spaceship on its three-day trip to the moon.
Once in lunar orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin clambered into the Eagle and descended toward the lunar surface, leaving Collins to circle above them.
The landing wasn't easy. The lunar surface was rockier than expected, and Armstrong had to pilot the fragile craft horizontally until he found a safe, flat spot.
On July 20, 1969, at 1:04:40 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the small spacecraft came to rest gently near the moon's dry Sea of Tranquillity.
"The Eagle has landed," Armstrong radioed back to Earth.
At New York's Yankee Stadium, 16,000 fans stood up and cheered.
Six hours and 52 minutes later, as an onboard television camera sent grainy but stunning images back for the world to see, Armstrong became the first human to set foot on lunar soil.
There had been some dispute over who would be first, Armstrong or Aldrin, but Donald "Deke" Slayton, head of the astronaut corps, said he made the decision.
"Neil was the commander," Slayton once said. "He had the seniority, and that was all there was to it."
Aldrin stepped out of the Eagle a few minutes after Armstrong. The pair spent about 21/2 hours on the lunar surface, collecting dozens of soil and rock samples, setting up seismic equipment, planting an American flag and taking photographs.
"Isn't this fun?" the usually reserved Armstrong remarked jocularly at one point, patting Aldrin on the shoulder as they bounded about in the low lunar gravity.
As they climbed back into the Eagle, they left behind a plaque that reads: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon. We come in peace for all mankind."
Within hours, the Eagle had lifted off from the moon, rejoined the Columbia and the three astronauts were on their way back to Earth.
On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific about 950 miles south of Hawaii. To assure they weren't carrying any lunar organisms, the astronauts were placed in quarantine for 18 days. President Nixon waved to them through a window of their isolation chamber.
On Aug. 13, 1969, the nation saluted them. They appeared in a parade in New York City in the morning and another in Chicago in the afternoon. That night, they were honored by 1,400 at a state dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Nixon gave them each the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Then the trio left on a 22-nation tour, during which they met the queen of England, the shah of Iran and the pope.
The public adulation eventually dimmed for Aldrin and Collins — but not Armstrong. He was in demand, and whenever he made a public appearance people clamored for his autograph.
It all made him uncomfortable.
He worked a NASA desk job in Washington for a couple years and after earning a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at USC, he returned to Ohio. For a decade, he taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
He bought a secluded, 200-acre dairy farm near Lebanon, Ohio, and occasionally ventured into town for a quiet lunch at a local cafe. The town respected his privacy and he said he enjoyed doing the moderate physical work required on a farm.
When called by his country, he responded, serving in 1985 on the National Commission on Space and in 1986 as vice chairman of the presidential commission that investigated the crash of the space shuttle Challenger.
He continued to fly, piloting a light plane he kept at a nearby airport. He served on the boards of several large corporations, and as chairman of AIL Technologies, an aerospace electronics firm on Long Island, N.Y.
He even surprised everyone and did a television commercial for Chrysler.
In 1994, Armstrong divorced his wife of 38 years. Shortly afterward, he married the former Carol Knight, a woman 15 years his junior, and receded further from public life.
The closest he came to describing what the Apollo 11 mission meant to him was during a Life magazine interview several weeks before the flight.
"The single thing which makes any man happiest is the realization that he has worked up to the limits of his ability, his capacity," Armstrong said. "It's all the better, of course, if this work has made a contribution to knowledge, or toward moving the human race a little farther forward."
Information on survivors was not immediately available.
Neil Armstrong, the U.S. astronaut who was the first person to set foot on the moon, firmly establishing him as one of the great heroes of the 20th century, has died. He was 82.
Armstrong died following complications from cardiovascular procedures, his family announced Saturday.
When he made that famous step on July 20, 1969, he uttered a phrase that has been carved in stone and quoted across the planet: "That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind."
Armstrong spoke those words quietly as he gazed down at his, the first human footprint on the surface of the moon. In the excitement of the moment, the "a" was left out -- either because Armstrong omitted it or because it was lost in the static of the radio transmission back to Earth.
For the usually taciturn Armstrong, it was a rare burst of eloquence seen and heard by 60 million television viewers worldwide. But Armstrong, a reticent, self-effacing man who shunned the spotlight, was never comfortable with his public image as a courageous, historic man of action.
"I am, and ever will be, a white-sock, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer," Armstrong once told a National Press Club gathering.
Perhaps.
How many other nerdy engineers flew 78 combat missions as a Navy jet fighter pilot during the Korean War? Logged more than 1,000 hours as a test pilot in some of the world's fastest and most dangerous aircraft? Or became one of the first civilian astronauts and commanded Apollo 11, the first manned flight to land on the moon?
In the years that followed the flight of Apollo 11, Armstrong was asked again and again what it felt like to be the first man on the moon. In answering, he always shared the glory: "I was certainly aware that this was the culmination of the work of 300,000 to 400,000 people over a decade."
Neil Alden Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, on his grandfather's farm near Wapakoneta, Ohio.
His father, Stephen Armstrong, was a civil servant who audited county records in Ohio and later served as assistant director of the Ohio Mental Hygiene and Corrections Department. The family of his mother, Viola, owned the farm.
For more than a decade, his family lived in a succession of Ohio cities to accommodate his father's job before settling down in Wapakoneta.
After his father bought him a ride in a Ford Trimotor transport plane in 1936, Armstrong rushed home and began building model airplanes and a wind tunnel to test them.
A good student, Armstrong was a much-decorated Boy Scout and played the baritone horn in a school band. But aviation always came first.
In 1945, he started taking flying lessons, paying for them by working as a stock clerk at a drugstore. On his 16th birthday, he got his pilot's license but didn't yet have a driver's license.
Upon graduating from high school in 1947, he was awarded a Navy scholarship to Purdue University. When the Korean War started in 1949, Armstrong was called to active duty.
After flight training, Armstrong was assigned to the carrier Essex, flying combat missions over North Korea. Although one of the Panther jets he flew off the carrier was crippled by enemy fire, he nursed the plane back over South Korea before bailing out safely. Recognized as an outstanding pilot with a flair for leadership, he received three Air Medals before finishing his active duty in 1952.
He returned to Purdue and earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955
Within months, he was a civilian test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was soon stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, chronicled by author Tom Wolfe as the home to pilots with "The Right Stuff."
Aviators were closely scrutinized there, evaluated carefully as they pushed high-performance aircraft to "the edge of the envelope" and quizzed repeatedly about the scientific implications of their work.
"A lot of people couldn't figure Armstrong out," Wolfe wrote. "You'd ask him a question and he would just stare at you with those pale blue eyes of his.
"And you'd start to ask the question again, figuring that he hadn't understood, and -- click -- out of his mouth would come forth a sequence of long, quiet, perfectly formed, precisely thought-out sentences, full of anisotropic functions and multiple-encounter trajectories or whatever else was called for.
"It was as if his hesitations were just data punch-in intervals for his computer."
Armstrong had dated a sorority beauty queen, Janet Shearon, at Purdue, and they were married in 1956. For a while they lived in a small shack without indoor plumbing in the San Gabriel Mountains overlooking Edwards.
Children soon followed. A son, Eric, in 1957 and a daughter, Karen, two years later. The couple had a second son, Mark, in 1963, a year after Karen died of a brain tumor. True to form, Armstrong did not speak publicly about the tragedy or any other aspects of his family life.
Instead, he concentrated on his work.
By 1963, NASA was striving to fulfill President John F. Kennedy's goal of beating the Soviet Union in the space race and putting an American on the moon. Kennedy wanted some civilian astronauts, and Armstrong was one of the first.
In 1966, he made his first space flight, with fellow astronaut David R. Scott. Their ship, Gemini 8, was docking with an unmanned Agena rocket when a malfunctioning thruster sent the interlocked space vehicles tumbling uncontrollably.
Unperturbed, Armstrong disconnected the two vehicles, brought Gemini 8 back under control and made a safe emergency landing in the Pacific. NASA officials cited his "extraordinary piloting skill."
Two years later, a lunar landing training vehicle he was piloting suffered control failure just 200 feet off the ground. Armstrong ejected, parachuting to safety.
On Jan. 1, 1969, he was named commander of Apollo 11, the first manned spaceship scheduled to land on the moon. His crewmates were fellow space veterans Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins.
Five months later, the massive Apollo 11 spaceship was nudged carefully onto the launch pad at what was then called Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The vehicle was as long as a football field, tipped on end. It consisted of the command module Columbia, which would carry the three astronauts on their 238,000-mile journey and in which Collins would orbit the moon; the lunar lander the Eagle, which would carry Armstrong and Collins down to the lunar surface; and a huge Saturn booster rocket to hurl the whole thing into space.
On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off. Two and a half hours later, after an orbit and a half around the Earth, onboard rockets fired to send the spaceship on its three-day trip to the moon.
Once in lunar orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin clambered into the Eagle and descended toward the lunar surface, leaving Collins to circle above them.
The landing wasn't easy. The lunar surface was rockier than expected, and Armstrong had to pilot the fragile craft horizontally until he found a safe, flat spot.
On July 20, 1969, at 1:04:40 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the small spacecraft came to rest gently near the moon's dry Sea of Tranquillity.
"The Eagle has landed," Armstrong radioed back to Earth.
At New York's Yankee Stadium, 16,000 fans stood up and cheered.
Six hours and 52 minutes later, as an onboard television camera sent grainy but stunning images back for the world to see, Armstrong became the first human to set foot on lunar soil.
There had been some dispute over who would be first, Armstrong or Aldrin, but Donald "Deke" Slayton, head of the astronaut corps, said he made the decision.
"Neil was the commander," Slayton once said. "He had the seniority, and that was all there was to it."
Aldrin stepped out of the Eagle a few minutes after Armstrong. The pair spent about 21/2 hours on the lunar surface, collecting dozens of soil and rock samples, setting up seismic equipment, planting an American flag and taking photographs.
"Isn't this fun?" the usually reserved Armstrong remarked jocularly at one point, patting Aldrin on the shoulder as they bounded about in the low lunar gravity.
As they climbed back into the Eagle, they left behind a plaque that reads: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon. We come in peace for all mankind."
Within hours, the Eagle had lifted off from the moon, rejoined the Columbia and the three astronauts were on their way back to Earth.
On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific about 950 miles south of Hawaii. To assure they weren't carrying any lunar organisms, the astronauts were placed in quarantine for 18 days. President Nixon waved to them through a window of their isolation chamber.
On Aug. 13, 1969, the nation saluted them. They appeared in a parade in New York City in the morning and another in Chicago in the afternoon. That night, they were honored by 1,400 at a state dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Nixon gave them each the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Then the trio left on a 22-nation tour, during which they met the queen of England, the shah of Iran and the pope.
The public adulation eventually dimmed for Aldrin and Collins — but not Armstrong. He was in demand, and whenever he made a public appearance people clamored for his autograph.
It all made him uncomfortable.
He worked a NASA desk job in Washington for a couple years and after earning a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at USC, he returned to Ohio. For a decade, he taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
He bought a secluded, 200-acre dairy farm near Lebanon, Ohio, and occasionally ventured into town for a quiet lunch at a local cafe. The town respected his privacy and he said he enjoyed doing the moderate physical work required on a farm.
When called by his country, he responded, serving in 1985 on the National Commission on Space and in 1986 as vice chairman of the presidential commission that investigated the crash of the space shuttle Challenger.
He continued to fly, piloting a light plane he kept at a nearby airport. He served on the boards of several large corporations, and as chairman of AIL Technologies, an aerospace electronics firm on Long Island, N.Y.
He even surprised everyone and did a television commercial for Chrysler.
In 1994, Armstrong divorced his wife of 38 years. Shortly afterward, he married the former Carol Knight, a woman 15 years his junior, and receded further from public life.
The closest he came to describing what the Apollo 11 mission meant to him was during a Life magazine interview several weeks before the flight.
"The single thing which makes any man happiest is the realization that he has worked up to the limits of his ability, his capacity," Armstrong said. "It's all the better, of course, if this work has made a contribution to knowledge, or toward moving the human race a little farther forward."
Information on survivors was not immediately available.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Mark your calendar: Sept 17 - Farewell, Endeavour
http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/endeavour-fly-out.aspx?utm_source=EndeavourFullList&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=EndeavourFlyOut-&utm_campaign=EndeavourFlyOutEmail-Aug12
Join NASA on September 17, 2012, as space shuttle Endeavour departs Kennedy Space Center for the last time. In celebration of the fly-out, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is hosting four days of activities. Guests have the opportunity to view Endeavour as it is placed atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft during a special tour and to see the astronaut crew from Endeavour's final mission STS-134. A limited number of guests even have the opportunity to witness the departure of Endeavour from the Shuttle Landing Facility.
Dates: September 14 - 17, 2012
On September 14 and 15, a package will be offered including admission and a special tour ticket. The windshield tour will drive by Launch Pad 39-A and the Mate/Demate Device allowing guests to view space shuttle Endeavour as it is secured to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The tour will end at the Apollo/Saturn V Center where guests can get off the bus. The tour will only be offered September 14 and 15.
Price: $70 per adult / $54 per child (ages 3-11), plus tax
When purchasing online, please be sure to select 09/14/12 or 09/15/12 as the start date.
Join NASA on September 17, 2012, as space shuttle Endeavour departs Kennedy Space Center for the last time. In celebration of the fly-out, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is hosting four days of activities. Guests have the opportunity to view Endeavour as it is placed atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft during a special tour and to see the astronaut crew from Endeavour's final mission STS-134. A limited number of guests even have the opportunity to witness the departure of Endeavour from the Shuttle Landing Facility.
Dates: September 14 - 17, 2012
On September 17, 2012, space shuttle Endeavour will depart out of
Kennedy Space Center for the last time at approximately 7:30 a.m.
EST. The orbiter will be placed on top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a
modified Boeing 747, and flown to its new destination at the California
Science Center in Los Angeles, California.
The Visitor Complex will open at 5:00 a.m. EST on Monday, September 17. Those who have transportation tickets to the Shuttle Landing Facility will begin boarding the buses at 6:00 a.m. EST. Limited operations will be open to the public prior to the fly-out.
Viewing will also be available from the Visitor Complex. Guests will have a great photo opportunity of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and Endeavour as they fly over the Rocket Garden. There will be a jumbotron screen set up and food service will be available.
Dates and times subject to change.
The Visitor Complex will open at 5:00 a.m. EST on Monday, September 17. Those who have transportation tickets to the Shuttle Landing Facility will begin boarding the buses at 6:00 a.m. EST. Limited operations will be open to the public prior to the fly-out.
Viewing will also be available from the Visitor Complex. Guests will have a great photo opportunity of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and Endeavour as they fly over the Rocket Garden. There will be a jumbotron screen set up and food service will be available.
Dates and times subject to change.
Endeavour Fly-Out Tickets
A limited number of tickets will be available for the opportunity to witness the departure of Endeavour from the actual Shuttle Landing Facility. The ticket package includes admission and the transportation ticket to the Shuttle Landing Facility.
Price: $90 per adult / $80 per child (ages 3-11), plus tax
When purchasing online, please be sure to select 9/17/12 as the start date.
Special Endeavour TourA limited number of tickets will be available for the opportunity to witness the departure of Endeavour from the actual Shuttle Landing Facility. The ticket package includes admission and the transportation ticket to the Shuttle Landing Facility.
Price: $90 per adult / $80 per child (ages 3-11), plus tax
When purchasing online, please be sure to select 9/17/12 as the start date.
On September 14 and 15, a package will be offered including admission and a special tour ticket. The windshield tour will drive by Launch Pad 39-A and the Mate/Demate Device allowing guests to view space shuttle Endeavour as it is secured to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The tour will end at the Apollo/Saturn V Center where guests can get off the bus. The tour will only be offered September 14 and 15.
Price: $70 per adult / $54 per child (ages 3-11), plus tax
When purchasing online, please be sure to select 09/14/12 or 09/15/12 as the start date.
NASA Administrator Announces New Commercial Crew And Cargo Milestones
From the Sacramento Bee: NASA Administrator Announces New Commercial Crew And Cargo Milestones
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug. 23, 2012 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Thursday new milestones in the nation's commercial space initiatives from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The latest advances made by NASA's commercial space partners pave the way for the first contracted flight of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) this fall and mark progress toward a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next 5 years.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug. 23, 2012 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Thursday new milestones in the nation's commercial space initiatives from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The latest advances made by NASA's commercial space partners pave the way for the first contracted flight of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) this fall and mark progress toward a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next 5 years.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)
Bolden announced Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has completed its Space Act Agreement with NASA for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS). SpaceX is scheduled to launch the first of its 12 contracted cargo flights to the space station from Cape Canaveral in October, under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services Program.
"We're working to open a new frontier for commercial opportunities in space and create job opportunities right here in Florida and across the United States," Bolden said. "And we're working to in-source the work that is currently being done elsewhere and bring it right back here to the U.S. where it belongs."
Through the COTS program, NASA provides investments to stimulate the American commercial space industry. As part of its COTS partnership, SpaceX became the first commercial company to resupply the space station in May, successfully launching its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the orbiting complex. During the historic mission, the Dragon was captured by astronauts using the station's robot arm, unloaded and safely returned to Earth carrying experiments conducted aboard ISS. Later this winter, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to carry out its first test flight under COTS.
Bolden also announced NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corp. has conducted its first milestone under the agency's recently announced Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative. The milestone, a program implementation plan review, marks an important first step in Sierra Nevada's efforts to develop a crew transportation system with its Dream Chaser spacecraft.
CCiCap is an initiative of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and an Obama administration priority. The objective of the CCP is to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the space station and low Earth orbit. After the capability is matured, it is expected to be available to the government and other customers. NASA could contract to purchase commercial services to meet its station crew transportation needs later this decade.
While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop commercial spaceflight capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration across the solar system.
For more information about NASA's commercial space initiatives and programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/commercial
For more information about the present and future of American human spaceflight, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
Bolden announced Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has completed its Space Act Agreement with NASA for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS). SpaceX is scheduled to launch the first of its 12 contracted cargo flights to the space station from Cape Canaveral in October, under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services Program.
"We're working to open a new frontier for commercial opportunities in space and create job opportunities right here in Florida and across the United States," Bolden said. "And we're working to in-source the work that is currently being done elsewhere and bring it right back here to the U.S. where it belongs."
Through the COTS program, NASA provides investments to stimulate the American commercial space industry. As part of its COTS partnership, SpaceX became the first commercial company to resupply the space station in May, successfully launching its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the orbiting complex. During the historic mission, the Dragon was captured by astronauts using the station's robot arm, unloaded and safely returned to Earth carrying experiments conducted aboard ISS. Later this winter, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to carry out its first test flight under COTS.
Bolden also announced NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corp. has conducted its first milestone under the agency's recently announced Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative. The milestone, a program implementation plan review, marks an important first step in Sierra Nevada's efforts to develop a crew transportation system with its Dream Chaser spacecraft.
CCiCap is an initiative of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and an Obama administration priority. The objective of the CCP is to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the space station and low Earth orbit. After the capability is matured, it is expected to be available to the government and other customers. NASA could contract to purchase commercial services to meet its station crew transportation needs later this decade.
While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop commercial spaceflight capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration across the solar system.
For more information about NASA's commercial space initiatives and programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/commercial
For more information about the present and future of American human spaceflight, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Curiosity -- America's Endangered Triumph
From HuffPost: Curiosity -- America's Endangered Triumph
On Sunday August 5, 2012, I was among a group of people who witnessed the Rover landing on Mars in real time at NASA's Caltech-managed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. The excitement of this historic moment was overwhelming as we saw the one-ton, car-like Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) breakthrough the red plant's atmosphere and slow its speed from 13,000 mph to zero. One glimpse of those first images from over 100 million miles away demonstrates America's leadership in innovation.
Appropriately named Curiosity, the Rover will, over the next two years, explore mysteries of our nearby planet. That is what science is all about -- revealing the unknown. America's past investment in basic science and engineering is what led to such a triumph and undergirds its leadership in today's world, but this leadership is now threatened by decreased funding and increased bureaucracy, and this change could transform America's position, economically and politically.
After World War II, scientific research in the U.S. was well supported. In the 1960s, when I came to America, the sky was the limit, and this conducive atmosphere enabled many of us to pursue esoteric research that resulted in America winning the lion's share of Nobel Prizes. American universities were magnets to young scientists and engineers from around the globe. The truth is that neither did we then nor do we now know what the broad impact of research on society would be -- unpredictability is in the fabric of science discoveries.
In much of academia today, however, curiosity-driven research is no longer looked upon favorably. Research proposals must address "broad relevance to society" and provide "transformative solutions" even before research begins. Universities are increasingly pressured to raise funds for cost operations and overhead is on the rise. Professors are writing more proposals, reducing the time available for creative thinking, and increasing numbers of academics are involved in commercial enterprises. Faculty tenure at many universities is driven by how much money the young faculty can raise. These constraints and practices beg the question: Would a young Einstein, Feynman, or Pauling be attracted to the profession today and would they be able to pursue their inquiries into fundamental questions in today's environment?
In the U.S., industry participated uniquely in R&D, but this too has changed. One of the jewels of the research-oriented industrial entities was Bell Labs where fundamental research was so advanced that it used to be said it was "the best university in America." Bell Labs had some of the world's leading scientists and engineers and collectively they made pioneering contributions, from the discovery of the transistor to the "big bang" origin of our universe. The broad-based, curiosity-driven structure of Bell Labs is no longer in existence and other industrial labs have, for the most part, redirected their resources into research areas relevant to their market products.
From my experience in academia, I found that the majority of young people seeking research-oriented professions are driven by the excitement of their curiosity and the prospect of a decent job, but in the current market, Ph.D.-level scientists are holding temporary positions or are unemployed. The average age that a principle investigator receives his/her first NIH-R01 award has increased to 42 years and experience from multiple post-doctoral positions is often necessary for advancement in academia. These drawbacks discourage younger generations from pursuing research careers.
What is clear is that progress in research requires the nurturing of creative scientists in an environment that encourages interactions between researchers and collaborations across different fields, but such interactions cannot and should not be orchestrated by weighty management, as creative minds and bureaucracies are inharmonious. Today, officials in many developing countries are seeking mechanisms to reach the innovation level of the developed world, especially the U.S., but the core principles of innovation are often misunderstood. Regrettably, the same trend is creeping into developed countries.
One must then ask, is there a formula for "managing discovery making?" The answer is in the realization of and belief in the natural evolution of developments, from basic research to technology transfer, and then to societal benefits. For basic fundamental research to flourish, the nation must provide young people with a proper education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Additionally, a renewed vision for investment in fundamental, curiosity-driven research is needed. It is not in the best interest of the U.S. to reduce R&D funding in the indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts of the national budget. Legislators must not impede the coming of the best minds from around the world to America, but at the same time, and perhaps more importantly, they must make the necessary changes to reignite young Americans' interest in science by exposure to it in the early years of schooling and through modern media.
In the 1950s, Nobel Laureate Robert Solow showed that new technologies create a large portion of economic growth, affecting in the U.S. nearly 75 percent of its growth output. The theory of quantum mechanics alone has had a major impact on the economy of the world market. Without it, revolutionary technologies would not have been realized. Think of the LASER and the optical communication industry, MRI and the health industry, and the TRANSISTOR and the IT market, not to mention the vast progress made in drug discovery, gene technology and miniaturization. In our daily use of the cell phone, the World Wide Web, and Google's search we should recall that basic research is the springboard of their development, and, as importantly, American influence in the world is spread largely through its "soft" power of science and technology, according to a Pew Research poll.
America was and still is able to make the necessary changes to maintain research institutions that are the envy of the world. At Caltech, I find it remarkable that an institution with less than 300 faculty members in all disciplines is able to produce, from its faculty and graduates, 35 Nobel laureates. The key to these achievements is the unique milieu for R&D envisaged by its "founding-fathers" 100 years ago.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the West has dominated world politics and economics with the power of science. Yet, it would be hubristic and naïve to think that we now know what will be relevant tomorrow. Investing in science education and curiosity-driven research is investing in the future. For many decades, America had the right formula for achieving progress through such investments. Now, it is time to revisit this vision. If not, a transition may be in the making, with the Sun of innovation rising in the East.
On Sunday August 5, 2012, I was among a group of people who witnessed the Rover landing on Mars in real time at NASA's Caltech-managed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. The excitement of this historic moment was overwhelming as we saw the one-ton, car-like Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) breakthrough the red plant's atmosphere and slow its speed from 13,000 mph to zero. One glimpse of those first images from over 100 million miles away demonstrates America's leadership in innovation.
Appropriately named Curiosity, the Rover will, over the next two years, explore mysteries of our nearby planet. That is what science is all about -- revealing the unknown. America's past investment in basic science and engineering is what led to such a triumph and undergirds its leadership in today's world, but this leadership is now threatened by decreased funding and increased bureaucracy, and this change could transform America's position, economically and politically.
After World War II, scientific research in the U.S. was well supported. In the 1960s, when I came to America, the sky was the limit, and this conducive atmosphere enabled many of us to pursue esoteric research that resulted in America winning the lion's share of Nobel Prizes. American universities were magnets to young scientists and engineers from around the globe. The truth is that neither did we then nor do we now know what the broad impact of research on society would be -- unpredictability is in the fabric of science discoveries.
In much of academia today, however, curiosity-driven research is no longer looked upon favorably. Research proposals must address "broad relevance to society" and provide "transformative solutions" even before research begins. Universities are increasingly pressured to raise funds for cost operations and overhead is on the rise. Professors are writing more proposals, reducing the time available for creative thinking, and increasing numbers of academics are involved in commercial enterprises. Faculty tenure at many universities is driven by how much money the young faculty can raise. These constraints and practices beg the question: Would a young Einstein, Feynman, or Pauling be attracted to the profession today and would they be able to pursue their inquiries into fundamental questions in today's environment?
In the U.S., industry participated uniquely in R&D, but this too has changed. One of the jewels of the research-oriented industrial entities was Bell Labs where fundamental research was so advanced that it used to be said it was "the best university in America." Bell Labs had some of the world's leading scientists and engineers and collectively they made pioneering contributions, from the discovery of the transistor to the "big bang" origin of our universe. The broad-based, curiosity-driven structure of Bell Labs is no longer in existence and other industrial labs have, for the most part, redirected their resources into research areas relevant to their market products.
From my experience in academia, I found that the majority of young people seeking research-oriented professions are driven by the excitement of their curiosity and the prospect of a decent job, but in the current market, Ph.D.-level scientists are holding temporary positions or are unemployed. The average age that a principle investigator receives his/her first NIH-R01 award has increased to 42 years and experience from multiple post-doctoral positions is often necessary for advancement in academia. These drawbacks discourage younger generations from pursuing research careers.
What is clear is that progress in research requires the nurturing of creative scientists in an environment that encourages interactions between researchers and collaborations across different fields, but such interactions cannot and should not be orchestrated by weighty management, as creative minds and bureaucracies are inharmonious. Today, officials in many developing countries are seeking mechanisms to reach the innovation level of the developed world, especially the U.S., but the core principles of innovation are often misunderstood. Regrettably, the same trend is creeping into developed countries.
One must then ask, is there a formula for "managing discovery making?" The answer is in the realization of and belief in the natural evolution of developments, from basic research to technology transfer, and then to societal benefits. For basic fundamental research to flourish, the nation must provide young people with a proper education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Additionally, a renewed vision for investment in fundamental, curiosity-driven research is needed. It is not in the best interest of the U.S. to reduce R&D funding in the indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts of the national budget. Legislators must not impede the coming of the best minds from around the world to America, but at the same time, and perhaps more importantly, they must make the necessary changes to reignite young Americans' interest in science by exposure to it in the early years of schooling and through modern media.
In the 1950s, Nobel Laureate Robert Solow showed that new technologies create a large portion of economic growth, affecting in the U.S. nearly 75 percent of its growth output. The theory of quantum mechanics alone has had a major impact on the economy of the world market. Without it, revolutionary technologies would not have been realized. Think of the LASER and the optical communication industry, MRI and the health industry, and the TRANSISTOR and the IT market, not to mention the vast progress made in drug discovery, gene technology and miniaturization. In our daily use of the cell phone, the World Wide Web, and Google's search we should recall that basic research is the springboard of their development, and, as importantly, American influence in the world is spread largely through its "soft" power of science and technology, according to a Pew Research poll.
America was and still is able to make the necessary changes to maintain research institutions that are the envy of the world. At Caltech, I find it remarkable that an institution with less than 300 faculty members in all disciplines is able to produce, from its faculty and graduates, 35 Nobel laureates. The key to these achievements is the unique milieu for R&D envisaged by its "founding-fathers" 100 years ago.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the West has dominated world politics and economics with the power of science. Yet, it would be hubristic and naïve to think that we now know what will be relevant tomorrow. Investing in science education and curiosity-driven research is investing in the future. For many decades, America had the right formula for achieving progress through such investments. Now, it is time to revisit this vision. If not, a transition may be in the making, with the Sun of innovation rising in the East.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Curiosity Rover Fires First Laser Beam at Martian Rock
From Wired Science: Curiosity Rover Fires First Laser Beam at Martian Rock
A small, flat rock known as Coronation suffered the wrath of Curiosity’s laser when the Mars rover finally fired up its ChemCam instrument and delivered 30 pulses of energy at the rock over a 10-second period.
The laser pulses, each delivering more than 1 million watts of power for around 5 one-billionths of a second, turn some of the rock’s atoms into a glowing, ionized plasma. By analyzing the light from the plasma, the ChemCam’s three spectrometers can determine what elements are in the rock.
"We got a great spectrum of Coronation — lots of signal,” Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, leader of the ChemCam scientific team, said in a press release today. “Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it’s payoff time!”
The rock formerly known as N165 was selected as a good target for Curiosity to test its laser on. Scientists are using the data to learn how ChemCam is working, but they were impressed with the quality of the data, which are even better than the data acquired during testing on Earth, and they may learn something about the rock as well.
“It’s surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio,” ChemCam scientist Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France, said in the press release. “It’s so rich, we can expect great science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in the next two years.”
A small, flat rock known as Coronation suffered the wrath of Curiosity’s laser when the Mars rover finally fired up its ChemCam instrument and delivered 30 pulses of energy at the rock over a 10-second period.
The laser pulses, each delivering more than 1 million watts of power for around 5 one-billionths of a second, turn some of the rock’s atoms into a glowing, ionized plasma. By analyzing the light from the plasma, the ChemCam’s three spectrometers can determine what elements are in the rock.
"We got a great spectrum of Coronation — lots of signal,” Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, leader of the ChemCam scientific team, said in a press release today. “Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it’s payoff time!”
The rock formerly known as N165 was selected as a good target for Curiosity to test its laser on. Scientists are using the data to learn how ChemCam is working, but they were impressed with the quality of the data, which are even better than the data acquired during testing on Earth, and they may learn something about the rock as well.
“It’s surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio,” ChemCam scientist Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France, said in the press release. “It’s so rich, we can expect great science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in the next two years.”
Friday, August 17, 2012
Director Paul Hildebrandt on the 'Fight for Space'
From the Outside Blog: Director Paul Hildebrandt on the 'Fight for Space'
Paul Hildebrandt began a love affair with space as a child through science fiction. As an adult, the director has set out to make a documentary called Fight for Space. "Since the Apollo era of the 1960s, NASA's budget has been shrinking and our ambitions in space have been decreasing," he says on the film's Kickstarter page. "We are producing a documentary that will examine the reasons why our space program is not all it can be."
He has interviewed scientists, engineers, astronauts, politicians, teachers, and ordinary citizens about the space program, and hopes to tell one clear story through a number of viewpoints. We called him up to find out a more.
How and why did you get interested in the United States and space exploration?
For as long as I can remember I've been interested in space. It's possible that Star Trek may have had something to do with it, as one of my earliest memories was sitting with my father watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. From the third grade on I've always considered myself an enthusiast. During that time the Space Shuttle was relatively new. We were advancing an engineering frontier and the International Space Station was being constructed. Rumors of a tenth planet whirled around the science classroom. Electronics technology was advancing at an alarming rate. We had a wide selection of science fiction television shows to choose from. There was no reason not to be excited about the future.
I believe that we should constantly be looking up and out, that we must strive to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday. As most of us were when we were children, I was an explorer, and that drive to explore has never left me. Space is the ultimate frontier. When you look into the sky and out to the stars we can only guess what awaits us. The universe is pretty big, and it would be a shame not to see what's out there.
Can you say that America lost its edge in space considering the success of the Mars rover and SpaceX?
Yes. Here's why: In 1969, we landed a man on the moon. This was accomplished using the most powerful rocket ever built and the computing power of less than a pocket calculator. Fast forward to today. In 2004, the Constellation project was stated to take 16 years to return to the moon. We got there in eight years the first time. SpaceX is an excellent endeavor and I applaud their efforts greatly, but they are picking up where NASA left off and not pushing further out yet. I'm not blaming them for this, as to do so would be incredibly expensive and I think what they are doing is great for the economic security of the nation. Consider this however, the International Space Station orbits the earth at a distance of 230 miles, that's less than the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles; Mars is roughly 34 million miles away.
Let's not forget about our newest friend on Mars. The Curiosity rover, another engineering marvel. However, consider that we sent our first spacecraft to Mars in 1975. We have sent several since then, so although Curiosity is an excellent craft and will undoubtedly reveal new secrets about Mars, we still have not sent humans to Mars. We have no immediate plans to, and we have yet to send a lander to Europa. Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) is an excellent mission. It is worth the money spent, and the engineering and scientific benefits gained from it will pay it back many times over. There is one key point that must be addressed about Curiosity. Many Americans don't even know the name of the lander, what it's doing there, or why we sent it, and in a few months, it will all but be forgotten by the majority of the general public. If we had sent humans to Mars, they would be making headlines daily and the scientific and engineering ambition of the nation would be in full force as it was during the 1960s. We build statues to people, not robots.
On the Kickstarter page you mention that funding for NASA has decreased since the 1960s. What are the numbers?
Adjusted for inflation, the NASA budget in 1966 was $32 billion. Today, it is around $17 billion and declining.
In the trailer, you say the United States’ ambitions in space exploration went down in the last 40 years. Can you provide a few examples that illustrate this?
As mentioned above, it took us eight years to get to the moon in the 1960s. We planned for a mission back to the moon in 2020. That mission was cancelled. In 1991, President Bush called for a mission to Mars. That mission never took place. In 2010, Barack Obama said we’d go to Mars by 2030. Will this happen? With the track record of cancelled NASA projects, I have serious doubts. The next president won't care in the slightest about what his predecessor wanted, and the president who is around in the 2030s won't either. We as a people must fight for space so that the politicians understand that is what the American people want.
What will it take to reenergize the space program in your opinion?
That's what our film will find out. I don't claim to be an expert, but we are interviewing experts. With their help we will craft a basic message that will say what we can do to reenergize our space program and what our next steps should be. In my opinion our next steps should be a permanent colony on the Moon, or Mars, or both. The Moon should be the first stop in my opinion because it's fairly close, and if anything goes wrong, help is only a few days away versus a year away.
For more, go to fightforspace.com or Kickstarter.
Paul Hildebrandt began a love affair with space as a child through science fiction. As an adult, the director has set out to make a documentary called Fight for Space. "Since the Apollo era of the 1960s, NASA's budget has been shrinking and our ambitions in space have been decreasing," he says on the film's Kickstarter page. "We are producing a documentary that will examine the reasons why our space program is not all it can be."
He has interviewed scientists, engineers, astronauts, politicians, teachers, and ordinary citizens about the space program, and hopes to tell one clear story through a number of viewpoints. We called him up to find out a more.
How and why did you get interested in the United States and space exploration?
For as long as I can remember I've been interested in space. It's possible that Star Trek may have had something to do with it, as one of my earliest memories was sitting with my father watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. From the third grade on I've always considered myself an enthusiast. During that time the Space Shuttle was relatively new. We were advancing an engineering frontier and the International Space Station was being constructed. Rumors of a tenth planet whirled around the science classroom. Electronics technology was advancing at an alarming rate. We had a wide selection of science fiction television shows to choose from. There was no reason not to be excited about the future.
I believe that we should constantly be looking up and out, that we must strive to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday. As most of us were when we were children, I was an explorer, and that drive to explore has never left me. Space is the ultimate frontier. When you look into the sky and out to the stars we can only guess what awaits us. The universe is pretty big, and it would be a shame not to see what's out there.
Can you say that America lost its edge in space considering the success of the Mars rover and SpaceX?
Yes. Here's why: In 1969, we landed a man on the moon. This was accomplished using the most powerful rocket ever built and the computing power of less than a pocket calculator. Fast forward to today. In 2004, the Constellation project was stated to take 16 years to return to the moon. We got there in eight years the first time. SpaceX is an excellent endeavor and I applaud their efforts greatly, but they are picking up where NASA left off and not pushing further out yet. I'm not blaming them for this, as to do so would be incredibly expensive and I think what they are doing is great for the economic security of the nation. Consider this however, the International Space Station orbits the earth at a distance of 230 miles, that's less than the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles; Mars is roughly 34 million miles away.
Let's not forget about our newest friend on Mars. The Curiosity rover, another engineering marvel. However, consider that we sent our first spacecraft to Mars in 1975. We have sent several since then, so although Curiosity is an excellent craft and will undoubtedly reveal new secrets about Mars, we still have not sent humans to Mars. We have no immediate plans to, and we have yet to send a lander to Europa. Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) is an excellent mission. It is worth the money spent, and the engineering and scientific benefits gained from it will pay it back many times over. There is one key point that must be addressed about Curiosity. Many Americans don't even know the name of the lander, what it's doing there, or why we sent it, and in a few months, it will all but be forgotten by the majority of the general public. If we had sent humans to Mars, they would be making headlines daily and the scientific and engineering ambition of the nation would be in full force as it was during the 1960s. We build statues to people, not robots.
On the Kickstarter page you mention that funding for NASA has decreased since the 1960s. What are the numbers?
Adjusted for inflation, the NASA budget in 1966 was $32 billion. Today, it is around $17 billion and declining.
In the trailer, you say the United States’ ambitions in space exploration went down in the last 40 years. Can you provide a few examples that illustrate this?
As mentioned above, it took us eight years to get to the moon in the 1960s. We planned for a mission back to the moon in 2020. That mission was cancelled. In 1991, President Bush called for a mission to Mars. That mission never took place. In 2010, Barack Obama said we’d go to Mars by 2030. Will this happen? With the track record of cancelled NASA projects, I have serious doubts. The next president won't care in the slightest about what his predecessor wanted, and the president who is around in the 2030s won't either. We as a people must fight for space so that the politicians understand that is what the American people want.
What will it take to reenergize the space program in your opinion?
That's what our film will find out. I don't claim to be an expert, but we are interviewing experts. With their help we will craft a basic message that will say what we can do to reenergize our space program and what our next steps should be. In my opinion our next steps should be a permanent colony on the Moon, or Mars, or both. The Moon should be the first stop in my opinion because it's fairly close, and if anything goes wrong, help is only a few days away versus a year away.
For more, go to fightforspace.com or Kickstarter.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Florida Space Coast Brightens on Jobs Increase
From Bloomberg Business Week: Florida Space Coast Brightens on Jobs Increase
Medeiros, 51, spent a decade at Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s 72-mile-long Space Coast handling highly toxic fuels for shuttle contractor United Space Alliance LLC. He’s now a lead technician at the executive-jet assembly plant Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer SA (EMBR3) opened in nearby Melbourne, Florida, in February 2011.
A year after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shut down the shuttle program, eliminating at least 7,000 contractor jobs in the area, the employment outlook is improving. Joblessness in central Florida’s eastern coast was 9.4 percent in June, down from 11.7 percent in August 2011, the month after the last shuttle launch. Unemployment in Florida, a swing state in the 2012 presidential election, was 8.6 percent in June, down from 10.7 percent a year earlier.
Embraer plans to employ at least 200 people at the assembly plant and has 50 at a customer-service center it opened next door in December. The jet maker has said it will create another 200 jobs over five years at an engineering facility due to open across the street in 2013.
Boeing Co. (BA) has said it will create 550 jobs by the end of 2015 for a commercial crew program to provide flights to the international space station. Harris Corp. (HRS), which provides information-technology services to the government, is building an engineering center in Brevard County that could add 100 jobs and 300 construction positions in the next three years.
Still, many former shuttle workers are struggling to find work.
Myers, who has two grown children and lives alone in Titusville, about 40 miles north of Melbourne, tried to squeeze as much as she could from her 26 weeks of severance.
“I’m about at the end of that,” she said over a Greek salad at Mr. Submarine & Salads, where sandwiches are named for the Discovery, Columbia and Challenger shuttles. “I need to find a job.”
Myers said she doesn’t have health insurance and must take three kinds of insulin for her diabetes, in addition to pills for her blood pressure and thyroid condition.
In between looking for work on websites run by CareerBuilder Inc. and Monster Worldwide Inc. (MWW), Myers is trying to get a business-administration degree at Barry University’s Cape Canaveral branch. She said a program at Brevard Workforce, a county agency that helps retrain dismissed workers, covers the cost.
Like many former shuttle employees, Myers, who worked on every launch except the first going back to 1981, misses the sense of patriotism and pride.
“I don’t care how many launches you see, every one still gives you goose bumps,” she said. She remembers feeling her heart sink watching the January 1986 Challenger explosion from the porch of her grandmother’s house. She said she saw the smoke and thought, “Wait a minute. It’s not supposed to look like that.”
The culture of the industry has become embedded in Brevard County since Kennedy Space Center opened 50 years ago. It’s hard to drive more than a few minutes without passing a street named for an astronaut, such as Ronald McNair of the Challenger, or a space vehicle, like Apollo Road or Columbia Boulevard. The local area code is 321, for the countdown before liftoff.
Embraer technician Medeiros, an intense, beefy man with a small beard and salt-and-pepper hair, took the lower-paying job at a local beer distributor “just to keep myself mentally in the game,” he said. Myers interviewed for a position that would have paid $41,000, compared with $55,000 she made at the space center. She said she probably would have taken the job had she gotten an offer.
The county’s foreclosure rate was 10.8 percent in May, one percentage point more than in July 2011 when the shuttle program shut down, according to CoreLogic Inc. It reached a high of 11.1 percent in February.
Kyra Morgan, 55, who runs a cleaning service in Titusville, said four of her clients moved away in one week alone this month to find jobs elsewhere.
“It trickles down,” said Morgan, whose husband lost his job as a shuttle mechanic.
One of the biggest problems for the business community is “fighting the perception a lot of people have that NASA has shut down,” the chamber’s Gaedcke said.
One advantage for the area is the availability of aerospace talent. That was a factor in Embraer’s decision to assemble jets in Melbourne and is reflected in the fact that one-quarter of the plant’s employees have worked on NASA projects, said Phil Krull, managing director at the facility.
When hiring former space-shuttle workers, Krull tries to make sure they can adapt from focusing on one shuttle for months at a time to production of up to eight jets a month. Many of the employees bring the passion they had at the space center to Embraer and become some of the company’s best representatives, he said.
For Medeiros, who has two adult children in addition to two teen-aged stepchildren living with him and his wife, the loss of his space-shuttle job created “a big black void” in his life, he said.
Asked about his family’s reaction when he got his new position last year, Medeiros began to choke up with emotion before quickly collecting himself. He said he had feared he wouldn’t be able to get back into the aerospace industry and was surprised when he got the call from Embraer.
“I didn’t think they would be interested in me,” he said.
Brian Medeiros was driving a
Budweiser beer truck when he got a phone call saying he’d been
offered an aerospace-industry job 15 months after his position
at the U.S. space shuttle program was eliminated. He pulled over
and sobbed in relief.
“I started bawling my eyes out,” he said. “It was a
blessing. It was an opportunity to use every skill I’ve
developed.” Medeiros, 51, spent a decade at Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s 72-mile-long Space Coast handling highly toxic fuels for shuttle contractor United Space Alliance LLC. He’s now a lead technician at the executive-jet assembly plant Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer SA (EMBR3) opened in nearby Melbourne, Florida, in February 2011.
A year after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shut down the shuttle program, eliminating at least 7,000 contractor jobs in the area, the employment outlook is improving. Joblessness in central Florida’s eastern coast was 9.4 percent in June, down from 11.7 percent in August 2011, the month after the last shuttle launch. Unemployment in Florida, a swing state in the 2012 presidential election, was 8.6 percent in June, down from 10.7 percent a year earlier.
Sting, Impact
“Certainly the pain is very real for those still looking for work,” said Dina Reider-Hicks, a senior director at the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast. “There has been a sting, there has been an impact. But it hasn’t been as severe as people thought.” Some local business leaders thought that the unemployment rate could rise to the high teens, she said.Embraer plans to employ at least 200 people at the assembly plant and has 50 at a customer-service center it opened next door in December. The jet maker has said it will create another 200 jobs over five years at an engineering facility due to open across the street in 2013.
Boeing Co. (BA) has said it will create 550 jobs by the end of 2015 for a commercial crew program to provide flights to the international space station. Harris Corp. (HRS), which provides information-technology services to the government, is building an engineering center in Brevard County that could add 100 jobs and 300 construction positions in the next three years.
Still, many former shuttle workers are struggling to find work.
No Offers
Francine Myers, 53, who started at the space center in 1981, lost her position as a logistics specialist in July 2011. She’s had two job interviews and no offers since then.Myers, who has two grown children and lives alone in Titusville, about 40 miles north of Melbourne, tried to squeeze as much as she could from her 26 weeks of severance.
“I’m about at the end of that,” she said over a Greek salad at Mr. Submarine & Salads, where sandwiches are named for the Discovery, Columbia and Challenger shuttles. “I need to find a job.”
Myers said she doesn’t have health insurance and must take three kinds of insulin for her diabetes, in addition to pills for her blood pressure and thyroid condition.
In between looking for work on websites run by CareerBuilder Inc. and Monster Worldwide Inc. (MWW), Myers is trying to get a business-administration degree at Barry University’s Cape Canaveral branch. She said a program at Brevard Workforce, a county agency that helps retrain dismissed workers, covers the cost.
Small Business
Her cousin, Fred Harvey Jr., took an entrepreneurship course through Brevard Workforce after losing his job with the shuttle program and has opened Fred’s Auto Butler Mobile Detailing Services, a small business that spiffs up cars, boats and airplanes.Like many former shuttle employees, Myers, who worked on every launch except the first going back to 1981, misses the sense of patriotism and pride.
“I don’t care how many launches you see, every one still gives you goose bumps,” she said. She remembers feeling her heart sink watching the January 1986 Challenger explosion from the porch of her grandmother’s house. She said she saw the smoke and thought, “Wait a minute. It’s not supposed to look like that.”
The culture of the industry has become embedded in Brevard County since Kennedy Space Center opened 50 years ago. It’s hard to drive more than a few minutes without passing a street named for an astronaut, such as Ronald McNair of the Challenger, or a space vehicle, like Apollo Road or Columbia Boulevard. The local area code is 321, for the countdown before liftoff.
Reliably Republican
While Brevard County is reliably Republican, it’s in a battleground state for presidential candidates. In 2008, when Florida sided with Democrat Barack Obama, Brevard’s vote went to Republican John McCain: 157,589 to 127,620.
Until companies such as Embraer and Boeing finish
expanding, unemployed workers face a “short-term gap” to find
jobs with pay comparable to what they received from shuttle
contractors, said Marcia Gaedcke, president of the Titusville
Area Chamber of Commerce.
“Managing that gap is the challenge,” Gaedcke said.
“From the medium- to long-term, we’ll be fine, we’ll see
growth.” Embraer technician Medeiros, an intense, beefy man with a small beard and salt-and-pepper hair, took the lower-paying job at a local beer distributor “just to keep myself mentally in the game,” he said. Myers interviewed for a position that would have paid $41,000, compared with $55,000 she made at the space center. She said she probably would have taken the job had she gotten an offer.
Former Workers
Some former shuttle workers have left the Space Coast, hurting the local economy.The county’s foreclosure rate was 10.8 percent in May, one percentage point more than in July 2011 when the shuttle program shut down, according to CoreLogic Inc. It reached a high of 11.1 percent in February.
Kyra Morgan, 55, who runs a cleaning service in Titusville, said four of her clients moved away in one week alone this month to find jobs elsewhere.
“It trickles down,” said Morgan, whose husband lost his job as a shuttle mechanic.
One of the biggest problems for the business community is “fighting the perception a lot of people have that NASA has shut down,” the chamber’s Gaedcke said.
$900 Million
In fact, NASA said Aug. 3 that Boeing and Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. won a combined $900 million in contracts from the agency to design and develop spacecraft that can carry astronauts. Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nevada, won a $212.5 million contract. The agreements will add an undetermined number of jobs to the Space Coast, the development commission’s Reider-Hicks said.One advantage for the area is the availability of aerospace talent. That was a factor in Embraer’s decision to assemble jets in Melbourne and is reflected in the fact that one-quarter of the plant’s employees have worked on NASA projects, said Phil Krull, managing director at the facility.
When hiring former space-shuttle workers, Krull tries to make sure they can adapt from focusing on one shuttle for months at a time to production of up to eight jets a month. Many of the employees bring the passion they had at the space center to Embraer and become some of the company’s best representatives, he said.
For Medeiros, who has two adult children in addition to two teen-aged stepchildren living with him and his wife, the loss of his space-shuttle job created “a big black void” in his life, he said.
Asked about his family’s reaction when he got his new position last year, Medeiros began to choke up with emotion before quickly collecting himself. He said he had feared he wouldn’t be able to get back into the aerospace industry and was surprised when he got the call from Embraer.
“I didn’t think they would be interested in me,” he said.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Deployable Space Systems, ATK Space Systems to develop NASA solar array system
From Military Aerospace: Deployable Space Systems, ATK Space Systems to develop NASA solar array system
WASHINGTON, 13 Aug. 2012. NASA officials have selected Deployable Space Systems (DSS) of Goleta, Calif., and ATK Space Systems Inc. in Commerce, Calif., to develop advanced solar array systems under the Space Technology program. Power generated by advanced solar array systems enable high-power solar electric propulsion for future NASA human exploration and science missions, communications satellites, and other future spacecraft applications.
NASA officials selected proposals offering innovative approaches to
the development of next-generation, large-scale solar arrays and
associated deployment mechanisms. Advanced solar arrays
are expected to reduce weight and stowed volume drastically compared to
current systems, as well as to improve the efficiency and functionality
of future systems that will produce hundreds of kilowatts of power.
"The technology embodied in these proposals will greatly advance the boundaries of NASA's science and exploration capabilities," says Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space Technology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Our investment in this technology acknowledges that this technology is a priority for NASA's future missions, as reported recently by the National Research Council. Once matured through these ground tests, NASA hopes to test next generation solar array systems in space, opening the door for exploration of a near-Earth asteroid, Mars and beyond."
The solicitation covers two acquisition phases. Under Phase 1, Deployable Space Systems and ATK Space Systems will develop their solar array system technology during the next 18 months.
During Phase 1, Deployable Space Systems and ATK Space Systems will design, analyze, and test a scalable solar array system capable of generating more than 30kW of power. In addition, the Phase 1 teams will identify the most critical technological risks of extending their concept to 250kW or greater power levels. Phase 1 awards range between $5 million and $7 million. Phase 2 is to prove flight readiness through an in-space demonstration of an advanced, modular and extendable solar array system.
NASA's Game Changing Development Program Office, located at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., sponsored this solicitation under Phase 1. NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland will manage the awarded contracts for the agency's Space Technology Program.
NASA's Space Technology Program is innovating, developing, testing, and flying hardware for use in NASA's future science and exploration missions.
WASHINGTON, 13 Aug. 2012. NASA officials have selected Deployable Space Systems (DSS) of Goleta, Calif., and ATK Space Systems Inc. in Commerce, Calif., to develop advanced solar array systems under the Space Technology program. Power generated by advanced solar array systems enable high-power solar electric propulsion for future NASA human exploration and science missions, communications satellites, and other future spacecraft applications.
"The technology embodied in these proposals will greatly advance the boundaries of NASA's science and exploration capabilities," says Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space Technology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Our investment in this technology acknowledges that this technology is a priority for NASA's future missions, as reported recently by the National Research Council. Once matured through these ground tests, NASA hopes to test next generation solar array systems in space, opening the door for exploration of a near-Earth asteroid, Mars and beyond."
The solicitation covers two acquisition phases. Under Phase 1, Deployable Space Systems and ATK Space Systems will develop their solar array system technology during the next 18 months.
During Phase 1, Deployable Space Systems and ATK Space Systems will design, analyze, and test a scalable solar array system capable of generating more than 30kW of power. In addition, the Phase 1 teams will identify the most critical technological risks of extending their concept to 250kW or greater power levels. Phase 1 awards range between $5 million and $7 million. Phase 2 is to prove flight readiness through an in-space demonstration of an advanced, modular and extendable solar array system.
NASA's Game Changing Development Program Office, located at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., sponsored this solicitation under Phase 1. NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland will manage the awarded contracts for the agency's Space Technology Program.
NASA's Space Technology Program is innovating, developing, testing, and flying hardware for use in NASA's future science and exploration missions.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Romney campaign offers thin gruel for future NASA space policy
From Examiner: Romney campaign offers thin gruel for future NASA space policy
According to CFN News in Florida, under prodding of both the media and the Obama campaign, Jeff Bechdel, Florida Communications Director, Mitt Romney For President, issued the following statement about the Republican presidential candidate’s views on space policy.
"Governor Romney will provide the clear, decisive, and steadfast leadership the space program requires. As President, Romney will bring together leading officials, researchers, and entrepreneurs to establish clear goals and missions for NASA that fulfill its objectives of spurring innovation, pursuing exploration, and symbolizing American exceptionalism.”
This statement adds nothing to the speech Romney gave in Florida last January in which he promised to have a space policy at some future date. It is thin gruel for people, especially on the space coast of Florida, who are wondering how different the civil space program will be under a President Romney than it is under President Obama. The Romney campaign is eschewing an opportunity to distinguish its candidate from President Obama in an increasingly important function of the federal government, projecting American power and influence beyond the Earth.
Of course any space policy that Romney might advocate will have risks. If he chooses to eviscerate NASA, say to make it a conduit for government subsidies for commercial space companies, he will cause a lot of disappointment among space enthusiasts. If he chooses a policy that is too similar to Obama’s then there will be no disappointment and no reason to support Romney over Obama. If he goes in a different direction, especially if it means spending more money, Romney opens himself to a different line of attack, along the lines that he wants to cut Medicare in order to go to Mars or some such thing.
But Romney should go bold, as he has shown himself capable of all from time to time, and lay out a vision for an American space future that, while highly risky, could be highly lucrative toward making the 21st Century a second American Century, making the moon, Mars, and then the rest of the Solar System a realm of American power and influence.
According to CFN News in Florida, under prodding of both the media and the Obama campaign, Jeff Bechdel, Florida Communications Director, Mitt Romney For President, issued the following statement about the Republican presidential candidate’s views on space policy.
"Governor Romney will provide the clear, decisive, and steadfast leadership the space program requires. As President, Romney will bring together leading officials, researchers, and entrepreneurs to establish clear goals and missions for NASA that fulfill its objectives of spurring innovation, pursuing exploration, and symbolizing American exceptionalism.”
This statement adds nothing to the speech Romney gave in Florida last January in which he promised to have a space policy at some future date. It is thin gruel for people, especially on the space coast of Florida, who are wondering how different the civil space program will be under a President Romney than it is under President Obama. The Romney campaign is eschewing an opportunity to distinguish its candidate from President Obama in an increasingly important function of the federal government, projecting American power and influence beyond the Earth.
Of course any space policy that Romney might advocate will have risks. If he chooses to eviscerate NASA, say to make it a conduit for government subsidies for commercial space companies, he will cause a lot of disappointment among space enthusiasts. If he chooses a policy that is too similar to Obama’s then there will be no disappointment and no reason to support Romney over Obama. If he goes in a different direction, especially if it means spending more money, Romney opens himself to a different line of attack, along the lines that he wants to cut Medicare in order to go to Mars or some such thing.
But Romney should go bold, as he has shown himself capable of all from time to time, and lay out a vision for an American space future that, while highly risky, could be highly lucrative toward making the 21st Century a second American Century, making the moon, Mars, and then the rest of the Solar System a realm of American power and influence.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
60 is the new 40
On August 10, 2012, the Cheyenne chapter of the AARP hosted a seminar
called Gray Matters - which was free and provided a free lunch -
unfortunately fish and cheesecake, blech - from 4 to 6 was a reception
for all travelers who had come in for the AARP National Spelling Bee to
be held on the 11th.
I attended that and it was a lot of fun. The emcee introduced a few folks, we talked about words, there was a "mock" spelling bee (which only consisted of about 20 people getting up and being questioned on one word...) and so on. And there were finger foods there - Chinese food to be precise. Don't know where they got it from or if they cooked it on site (Little America is a hotel and resort where people come to play golf among other things) but it was delish.
The spelling bee started at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am (Well...8:30 is not so ungodly but I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to get there in time for registration, etc.) It started with 4 rounds of 25 words each - which was a Written Test.
The first 25 words were extremely easy. They asked words like "Greetings" and "Navel" and "Mince." I suppose a few might have been considered difficult... "Animus" and "Lacuna."
The second 25 words were equally easy, but I did miss MUGWUMP.
I assume they did this just to help everyone settle the nerves and get new people used to what was going on. People had trouble hearing some of the words (hey, they were all over 50 and most over 60) and the Pronouncer would come down and tell them the word face to face and have them say it back, etc. Indeed, the Pronouncer did an excellent job.
Third round was where they started asking the difficult words.
I missed:
QUESTIONARY INERCALATE
TUATARA
SKOSH
VIRIDITY
WIMBLE
The fourth round was the real killer. I only got 12 out of 25 right. I missed:
FELICIFIC
DOVEKIE
FLYTING
NAPERY
COTYLEDONARY
WELTSCHMERRZ
OPPUGNER
AECIOSPORE
SYNCYTIAL
KNUR
IRIDIUM
TUYERE
HYOSCYAMINE
I then stayed for the Oral rounds and was joined by one of my friends from my Scrabble Club. (I think an audience could have assembled for the Written rounds, too. There were chairs there and family were in them...but I think most people only wanted to come see the Oral rounds where you actually saw the speller's faces as opposed to their backs, etc.)
Two of the people I met last night at the reception made it to the Orals. One of them it was his first trip to the Bee and he was successful his first time out. Made it through about 10 rounds. (In the Orals, you miss two words and you're out.) Another one was an elderly woman from Minnesota who also got through about 10 rounds before being knocked out.
There were three sisters and a brother who had come as a sort of family reunion. The eldest sister made it to the Oral rounds but was bounced after only two rounds. This was too bad and it was because she was a bit unlucky - she got two 6-syllable words in a row while some of the others were getting much easier ones (but still, not ones I could have spelled). But she was disqualified along with several other people in the same round, so hopefully she didn't feel too bad.
The words in the Oral Rounds were extremely difficult. Several times more difficult than the toughest words in the final round of the Written.
But, had I studied for a year, I think I could have handled them.
And it is my intention to study for a year and get into the Orals next year.
So, why is the title of this blog entry 60 is thenew 40?
Because it is.
People are living longer. You don't want to outlive your money and more importantly you don't want to outlive your sense of enjoyment of life. And learning new things every day is enjoyment and keeps the mind active.
The AARP Spelling Bee is held every year, and it gives you an excellent reason to travel to Cheyenne and see The Cowboy State. You'll meet lots of interesting people.
You do have to study.
I studied very desultorily for about a month...combine all the time I studied and it was about 10 hours. Not nearly enough, but then, I'm a good speller so the Written Rounds were relatively easy - except for that killer last round.
Why learn words that you'll never, ever say in real life?Well, because they're interesting. And the concepts of what you'll learn, you can apply in other areas. So it's a win win.
So start planning to live a long, healthy, active, intellectual life, and do it now, however old you might be!
I attended that and it was a lot of fun. The emcee introduced a few folks, we talked about words, there was a "mock" spelling bee (which only consisted of about 20 people getting up and being questioned on one word...) and so on. And there were finger foods there - Chinese food to be precise. Don't know where they got it from or if they cooked it on site (Little America is a hotel and resort where people come to play golf among other things) but it was delish.
The spelling bee started at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am (Well...8:30 is not so ungodly but I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to get there in time for registration, etc.) It started with 4 rounds of 25 words each - which was a Written Test.
The first 25 words were extremely easy. They asked words like "Greetings" and "Navel" and "Mince." I suppose a few might have been considered difficult... "Animus" and "Lacuna."
The second 25 words were equally easy, but I did miss MUGWUMP.
I assume they did this just to help everyone settle the nerves and get new people used to what was going on. People had trouble hearing some of the words (hey, they were all over 50 and most over 60) and the Pronouncer would come down and tell them the word face to face and have them say it back, etc. Indeed, the Pronouncer did an excellent job.
Third round was where they started asking the difficult words.
I missed:
QUESTIONARY INERCALATE
TUATARA
SKOSH
VIRIDITY
WIMBLE
The fourth round was the real killer. I only got 12 out of 25 right. I missed:
FELICIFIC
DOVEKIE
FLYTING
NAPERY
COTYLEDONARY
WELTSCHMERRZ
OPPUGNER
AECIOSPORE
SYNCYTIAL
KNUR
IRIDIUM
TUYERE
HYOSCYAMINE
I then stayed for the Oral rounds and was joined by one of my friends from my Scrabble Club. (I think an audience could have assembled for the Written rounds, too. There were chairs there and family were in them...but I think most people only wanted to come see the Oral rounds where you actually saw the speller's faces as opposed to their backs, etc.)
Two of the people I met last night at the reception made it to the Orals. One of them it was his first trip to the Bee and he was successful his first time out. Made it through about 10 rounds. (In the Orals, you miss two words and you're out.) Another one was an elderly woman from Minnesota who also got through about 10 rounds before being knocked out.
There were three sisters and a brother who had come as a sort of family reunion. The eldest sister made it to the Oral rounds but was bounced after only two rounds. This was too bad and it was because she was a bit unlucky - she got two 6-syllable words in a row while some of the others were getting much easier ones (but still, not ones I could have spelled). But she was disqualified along with several other people in the same round, so hopefully she didn't feel too bad.
The words in the Oral Rounds were extremely difficult. Several times more difficult than the toughest words in the final round of the Written.
But, had I studied for a year, I think I could have handled them.
And it is my intention to study for a year and get into the Orals next year.
So, why is the title of this blog entry 60 is thenew 40?
Because it is.
People are living longer. You don't want to outlive your money and more importantly you don't want to outlive your sense of enjoyment of life. And learning new things every day is enjoyment and keeps the mind active.
The AARP Spelling Bee is held every year, and it gives you an excellent reason to travel to Cheyenne and see The Cowboy State. You'll meet lots of interesting people.
You do have to study.
I studied very desultorily for about a month...combine all the time I studied and it was about 10 hours. Not nearly enough, but then, I'm a good speller so the Written Rounds were relatively easy - except for that killer last round.
Why learn words that you'll never, ever say in real life?Well, because they're interesting. And the concepts of what you'll learn, you can apply in other areas. So it's a win win.
So start planning to live a long, healthy, active, intellectual life, and do it now, however old you might be!
Saturday, August 11, 2012
NASA 'Morpheus' Craft Crashes During Test Flight, Explodes At Kennedy Space Center
From HuffPost Science: NASA 'Morpheus' Craft Crashes During Test Flight, Explodes At Kennedy Space Center
An experimental, "green" NASA lander crashed during its first free-flight test today (Aug. 9), erupting in a ball of flame when it hit the ground.
The unmanned Morpheus lander, which could one day deliver payloads to the moon or other solar system bodies, barely got off the pad around 12:40 p.m. EDT (1640 GMT) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida before toppling over and exploding.
"During today's free-flight test of the Project Morpheus vehicle, it lifted off the ground and then experienced a hardware component failure, which prevented it from maintaining stable flight," NASA officials said in a statement. "No one was injured, and the resulting fire was extinguished by KSC fire personnel."
"Engineers are looking into the incident, and the agency will release information as it becomes available," the statement added.
The Morpheus lander is powered by liquid oxygen and methane propellants, which are safer and cheaper to operate than traditional fuels and can be stored for longer periods in space, NASA officials say. Morpheus is also testing out automated landing-hazard avoidance technology, which would use lasers to spot dangerous boulders or craters on the surface of another world.
Prior to today's free-flight test, the experimental lander was tested in a series of tethered flights at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, as well as one at KSC last Friday (Aug. 3). The Johnson center oversees the project, which has reportedly cost about $7 million over the last 2 1/2 years.
The robotic Morpheus lander, which is about the size of an SUV, was built and assembled at JSC and the facilities of private spaceflight firm Armadillo Aerospace.
The vehicle could deliver about 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of cargo to the moon, NASA officials say. With some modifications, its precision landing system could also be used to help a probe rendezvous with an asteroid in deep space.
Morpheus set off a grass fire at JSC during a tethered test flight in June 2011. Nobody was hurt in that incident, either.
An experimental, "green" NASA lander crashed during its first free-flight test today (Aug. 9), erupting in a ball of flame when it hit the ground.
The unmanned Morpheus lander, which could one day deliver payloads to the moon or other solar system bodies, barely got off the pad around 12:40 p.m. EDT (1640 GMT) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida before toppling over and exploding.
"During today's free-flight test of the Project Morpheus vehicle, it lifted off the ground and then experienced a hardware component failure, which prevented it from maintaining stable flight," NASA officials said in a statement. "No one was injured, and the resulting fire was extinguished by KSC fire personnel."
"Engineers are looking into the incident, and the agency will release information as it becomes available," the statement added.
The Morpheus lander is powered by liquid oxygen and methane propellants, which are safer and cheaper to operate than traditional fuels and can be stored for longer periods in space, NASA officials say. Morpheus is also testing out automated landing-hazard avoidance technology, which would use lasers to spot dangerous boulders or craters on the surface of another world.
Prior to today's free-flight test, the experimental lander was tested in a series of tethered flights at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, as well as one at KSC last Friday (Aug. 3). The Johnson center oversees the project, which has reportedly cost about $7 million over the last 2 1/2 years.
The robotic Morpheus lander, which is about the size of an SUV, was built and assembled at JSC and the facilities of private spaceflight firm Armadillo Aerospace.
The vehicle could deliver about 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of cargo to the moon, NASA officials say. With some modifications, its precision landing system could also be used to help a probe rendezvous with an asteroid in deep space.
Morpheus set off a grass fire at JSC during a tethered test flight in June 2011. Nobody was hurt in that incident, either.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
NASA inks $440M contract with SpaceX to return Americans to space
From BizJournal: NASA inks $440M contract with SpaceX to return Americans to space
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies to develop the successor to the Space Shuttle, awarding the company a $440 million contract to transport American astronauts into space, SpaceX announced Friday.
“This is a decisive milestone in human spaceflight and sets an exciting course for the next phase of American space exploration,” said SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk, in a news release. “SpaceX, along with our partners at NASA, will continue to push the boundaries of space technology to develop the safest, most advanced crew vehicle ever flown.”
After success of the Hawthrone, Calif.-based company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft combination, SpaceX will begin making final modifications to safely transport astronauts into space.
SpaceX said it expects its first manned space flight to take place by 2015.
As reported in Orlando Business Journal’s Morning Call edition, Boeing and SpaceX were expected to be awarded part of the $1 billion in federal funds to develop new manned spacecraft, according to The Wall Street Journal.
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies to develop the successor to the Space Shuttle, awarding the company a $440 million contract to transport American astronauts into space, SpaceX announced Friday.
“This is a decisive milestone in human spaceflight and sets an exciting course for the next phase of American space exploration,” said SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk, in a news release. “SpaceX, along with our partners at NASA, will continue to push the boundaries of space technology to develop the safest, most advanced crew vehicle ever flown.”
After success of the Hawthrone, Calif.-based company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft combination, SpaceX will begin making final modifications to safely transport astronauts into space.
SpaceX said it expects its first manned space flight to take place by 2015.
As reported in Orlando Business Journal’s Morning Call edition, Boeing and SpaceX were expected to be awarded part of the $1 billion in federal funds to develop new manned spacecraft, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Mars rover Curiosity marks new future of space program
From CBS News : Mars rover Curiosity marks new future of space program
(CBS/AP) PASADENA, Calif. - In a show of technological wizardry, the robotic explorer Curiosity blazed through the pink skies of Mars, steering itself to a gentle landing inside a giant crater for the most ambitious dig yet into the Red Planet's past.
Cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory late Sunday after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built signaled it had survived a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.
"Touchdown confirmed," said engineer Allen Chen. "We're safe on Mars."
The extraterrestrial feat injected a much-needed boost to NASA, which is debating whether it can afford another Mars landing this decade. At a budget-busting $2.5 billion, Curiosity is the priciest gamble yet, which scientists and government officials hope will pay off with a bonanza of discoveries.
"We are the only country that has ever done anything like this," boasted John Holdren, the senior advisor to President Obama on science and technology issues, who was in the JPL control room as Curiosity touched down. "Many new technologies had to work in perfect synchronization."
President Obama called the landing "an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future." In a statement, he added that the landing "parallels" the new path of partnering with American companies to send more astronauts into space on American spacecrafts. The plan will hopefully save taxpayer dollars while still allowing NASA to do the innovative research they have always done.
Minutes after the landing signal reached Earth at 10:32 p.m. PT, Curiosity beamed back the first black-and-white pictures from inside the crater showing its wheel and its shadow, cast by the afternoon sun.
"We landed in a nice flat spot. Beautiful, really beautiful," said engineer Adam Steltzner, who led the team that devised the tricky landing routine.
It was NASA's seventh landing on Earth's neighbor; many other attempts by the U.S. and other countries to zip past, circle or set down on Mars have gone awry.
The arrival was an engineering tour de force, debuting never-before-tried acrobatics packed into "seven minutes of terror" as Curiosity sliced through the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph.
"We're about to land a rover that is 10 times heavier than (earlier rovers) with 15 times the payload," Doug McCuistion, director of Mars exploration at NASA Headquarters, told reporters in the hours before touchdown. "Tonight's the Super Bowl of planetary exploration, one yard line, one play left. We score and win, or we don't score and we don't win.
In a Hollywood-style finish, cables delicately lowered the rover to the ground at a snail-paced 2 mph. A video camera was set to capture the most dramatic moments - the first glimpse of a touchdown on another world.
Celebrations by the mission team were so joyous over the next hour that JPL Director Charles Elachi had to plead for calm in order to hold a press conference. He compared the team to athletic teams that go to the Olympics.
"This team came back with the gold," he said.
Over the next two years, Curiosity will drive over to a mountain rising from the crater floor, poke into rocks and scoop up rust-tinted soil to see if the region ever had the right environment for microscopic organisms to thrive. It's the latest chapter in the long-running quest to find out whether primitive life arose early in the planet's history.
The voyage to Mars took more than eight months and spanned 352 million miles. The trickiest part of the journey? The landing. Because Curiosity weighs nearly a ton, engineers created a more controlled way to set the rover down. The last Mars rovers, twins Spirit and Opportunity, were cocooned in air bags and bounced to a stop in 2004.
Curiosity relied on a series of braking tricks, similar to those used by the space shuttle, a heat shield and a supersonic parachute to slow down as it punched through the atmosphere.
And in a new twist, engineers came up with a way to lower the rover by cable from a hovering rocket-powered backpack. At touchdown, the cords cut and the rocket stage crashed a distance away.
The nuclear-powered Curiosity, the size of a small car, is packed with scientific tools, cameras and a weather station. It sports a robotic arm with a power drill, a laser that can zap distant rocks, a chemistry lab to sniff for the chemical building blocks of life and a detector to measure dangerous radiation on the surface.
It also tracked radiation levels during the journey to help NASA better understand the risks astronauts could face on a future manned trip.
Over the next several days, Curiosity was expected to send back the first color pictures. After several weeks of health checkups, the six-wheel rover could take its first short drive and flex its robotic arm.
The landing site near Mars' equator was picked because there are signs of past water everywhere, meeting one of the requirements for life as we know it. Inside Gale Crater is a 3-mile-high mountain, and images from space show the base appears rich in minerals that formed in the presence of water.
Previous trips to Mars have uncovered ice near the Martian north pole and evidence that water once flowed when the planet was wetter and toastier unlike today's harsh, frigid desert environment.
Curiosity's goal: to scour for basic ingredients essential for life including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and oxygen. It's not equipped to search for living or fossil microorganisms. To get a definitive answer, a future mission needs to fly Martian rocks and soil back to Earth to be examined by powerful laboratories.
The mission comes as NASA retools its Mars exploration strategy. Faced with tough economic times, the space agency pulled out of partnership with the European Space Agency to land a rock-collecting rover in 2018. The Europeans have since teamed with the Russians as NASA decides on a new roadmap.
Despite Mars' reputation as a spacecraft graveyard, humans continue their love affair with the planet, lobbing spacecraft in search of clues about its early history. Out of more than three dozen attempts - flybys, orbiters and landings - by the U.S., Soviet Union, Europe and Japan since the 1960s, more than half have ended disastrously.
One NASA rover that defied expectations is Opportunity, which is still busy wheeling around the rim of a crater in the Martian southern hemisphere eight years later.
(CBS/AP) PASADENA, Calif. - In a show of technological wizardry, the robotic explorer Curiosity blazed through the pink skies of Mars, steering itself to a gentle landing inside a giant crater for the most ambitious dig yet into the Red Planet's past.
Cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory late Sunday after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built signaled it had survived a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.
"Touchdown confirmed," said engineer Allen Chen. "We're safe on Mars."
The extraterrestrial feat injected a much-needed boost to NASA, which is debating whether it can afford another Mars landing this decade. At a budget-busting $2.5 billion, Curiosity is the priciest gamble yet, which scientists and government officials hope will pay off with a bonanza of discoveries.
"We are the only country that has ever done anything like this," boasted John Holdren, the senior advisor to President Obama on science and technology issues, who was in the JPL control room as Curiosity touched down. "Many new technologies had to work in perfect synchronization."
President Obama called the landing "an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future." In a statement, he added that the landing "parallels" the new path of partnering with American companies to send more astronauts into space on American spacecrafts. The plan will hopefully save taxpayer dollars while still allowing NASA to do the innovative research they have always done.
Minutes after the landing signal reached Earth at 10:32 p.m. PT, Curiosity beamed back the first black-and-white pictures from inside the crater showing its wheel and its shadow, cast by the afternoon sun.
"We landed in a nice flat spot. Beautiful, really beautiful," said engineer Adam Steltzner, who led the team that devised the tricky landing routine.
It was NASA's seventh landing on Earth's neighbor; many other attempts by the U.S. and other countries to zip past, circle or set down on Mars have gone awry.
The arrival was an engineering tour de force, debuting never-before-tried acrobatics packed into "seven minutes of terror" as Curiosity sliced through the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph.
"We're about to land a rover that is 10 times heavier than (earlier rovers) with 15 times the payload," Doug McCuistion, director of Mars exploration at NASA Headquarters, told reporters in the hours before touchdown. "Tonight's the Super Bowl of planetary exploration, one yard line, one play left. We score and win, or we don't score and we don't win.
In a Hollywood-style finish, cables delicately lowered the rover to the ground at a snail-paced 2 mph. A video camera was set to capture the most dramatic moments - the first glimpse of a touchdown on another world.
Celebrations by the mission team were so joyous over the next hour that JPL Director Charles Elachi had to plead for calm in order to hold a press conference. He compared the team to athletic teams that go to the Olympics.
"This team came back with the gold," he said.
Over the next two years, Curiosity will drive over to a mountain rising from the crater floor, poke into rocks and scoop up rust-tinted soil to see if the region ever had the right environment for microscopic organisms to thrive. It's the latest chapter in the long-running quest to find out whether primitive life arose early in the planet's history.
The voyage to Mars took more than eight months and spanned 352 million miles. The trickiest part of the journey? The landing. Because Curiosity weighs nearly a ton, engineers created a more controlled way to set the rover down. The last Mars rovers, twins Spirit and Opportunity, were cocooned in air bags and bounced to a stop in 2004.
Curiosity relied on a series of braking tricks, similar to those used by the space shuttle, a heat shield and a supersonic parachute to slow down as it punched through the atmosphere.
And in a new twist, engineers came up with a way to lower the rover by cable from a hovering rocket-powered backpack. At touchdown, the cords cut and the rocket stage crashed a distance away.
The nuclear-powered Curiosity, the size of a small car, is packed with scientific tools, cameras and a weather station. It sports a robotic arm with a power drill, a laser that can zap distant rocks, a chemistry lab to sniff for the chemical building blocks of life and a detector to measure dangerous radiation on the surface.
It also tracked radiation levels during the journey to help NASA better understand the risks astronauts could face on a future manned trip.
Over the next several days, Curiosity was expected to send back the first color pictures. After several weeks of health checkups, the six-wheel rover could take its first short drive and flex its robotic arm.
The landing site near Mars' equator was picked because there are signs of past water everywhere, meeting one of the requirements for life as we know it. Inside Gale Crater is a 3-mile-high mountain, and images from space show the base appears rich in minerals that formed in the presence of water.
Previous trips to Mars have uncovered ice near the Martian north pole and evidence that water once flowed when the planet was wetter and toastier unlike today's harsh, frigid desert environment.
Curiosity's goal: to scour for basic ingredients essential for life including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and oxygen. It's not equipped to search for living or fossil microorganisms. To get a definitive answer, a future mission needs to fly Martian rocks and soil back to Earth to be examined by powerful laboratories.
The mission comes as NASA retools its Mars exploration strategy. Faced with tough economic times, the space agency pulled out of partnership with the European Space Agency to land a rock-collecting rover in 2018. The Europeans have since teamed with the Russians as NASA decides on a new roadmap.
Despite Mars' reputation as a spacecraft graveyard, humans continue their love affair with the planet, lobbing spacecraft in search of clues about its early history. Out of more than three dozen attempts - flybys, orbiters and landings - by the U.S., Soviet Union, Europe and Japan since the 1960s, more than half have ended disastrously.
One NASA rover that defied expectations is Opportunity, which is still busy wheeling around the rim of a crater in the Martian southern hemisphere eight years later.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
India plans space mission to send a satellite to Mars
From Chicago Tribune: India plans space mission to send a satellite to Mars
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India plans to send a satellite via an unmanned spacecraft to orbit Mars next year, joining a small group of nations already exploring the red planet, a government scientist said on Friday.
A rocket will blast off from the southeastern coast of India, dropping the satellite into deep space, which will then travel onto Mars to achieve orbit, the senior scientist said, asking not to be named because the project is awaiting final approval.A spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) based in the southern city of Bangalore would not confirm the mission, but commented generally on the ambitions of India's space program.
"After the Moon, worldwide attention is now focused on finding out if there (are) habitable spots on Mars," ISRO's Deviprasad Karnik said.
ISRO scientists expect the satellite to orbit at less than 100 km (62 miles) above Mars.
India's federal cabinet is expected soon to clear the mission, according to media reports this week that said the program will cost about $80 million.
The plan has drawn criticism in a country suffering from high levels of malnutrition and power shortages. But India has long argued that technology developed in its space program has practical applications to everyday life.
India's space exploration program began in 1962. Four years ago, its Chandrayaan satellite found evidence of water on the moon. India is now looking at landing a wheeled rover on the Moon in 2014.
Separately, the United States expects to land NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory vehicle at 1:31 a.m. EDT on Monday (0031 EDT) next to a mountain that may harbor life-friendly environments.
Last year, a Chinese Russian probe failed in a bid to send a satellite to Mars.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India plans to send a satellite via an unmanned spacecraft to orbit Mars next year, joining a small group of nations already exploring the red planet, a government scientist said on Friday.
A rocket will blast off from the southeastern coast of India, dropping the satellite into deep space, which will then travel onto Mars to achieve orbit, the senior scientist said, asking not to be named because the project is awaiting final approval.A spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) based in the southern city of Bangalore would not confirm the mission, but commented generally on the ambitions of India's space program.
"After the Moon, worldwide attention is now focused on finding out if there (are) habitable spots on Mars," ISRO's Deviprasad Karnik said.
ISRO scientists expect the satellite to orbit at less than 100 km (62 miles) above Mars.
India's federal cabinet is expected soon to clear the mission, according to media reports this week that said the program will cost about $80 million.
The plan has drawn criticism in a country suffering from high levels of malnutrition and power shortages. But India has long argued that technology developed in its space program has practical applications to everyday life.
India's space exploration program began in 1962. Four years ago, its Chandrayaan satellite found evidence of water on the moon. India is now looking at landing a wheeled rover on the Moon in 2014.
Separately, the United States expects to land NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory vehicle at 1:31 a.m. EDT on Monday (0031 EDT) next to a mountain that may harbor life-friendly environments.
Last year, a Chinese Russian probe failed in a bid to send a satellite to Mars.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Boeing, SpaceX big winners in NASA competition for new spacecraft
From Los Angeles Times: Boeing, SpaceX big winners in NASA competition for new spacecraft
Now that NASA has mothballed its fleet of space shuttles, the space agency needs a new ride to the International Space Station.
On Friday, NASA handed out $1.1 billion in contracts to three companies to privately develop rockets and spacecraft for what could be the next step in manned spaceflight. The announcement was made by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on a cloudless day from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The winners included Hawthorne-based rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, and Boeing Co., which develops spacecraft in Huntington Beach and uses rocket engines made by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park.
The other award was given to Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nev., which is building a space plane that closely resembles a mini-space shuttle.
The goal of the funding "is to bring human spaceflight launches back to U.S. soil and end outsourcing of these important jobs," Bolden said at the news conference.
The awards are part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, which lays the groundwork for the potentially multibillion-dollar job of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
NASA is providing seed money to these companies to compete and create a new private space race. The United States currently has no way to travel to the International Space Station other than shelling out $63 million for rides on a Russian Soyuz rocket.
Boeing engineers in Huntington Beach and Houston are working to develop a seven-person spaceship, dubbed the Crew Space Transportation-100, that is designed to fly atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The company won $460 million, the largest of the three awards, and expects the space capsule to be ready for test flights by 2016.
"Today's award demonstrates NASA's confidence in Boeing's approach to provide commercial crew transportation services for the [International Space Station]," John Elbon, Boeing vice president and general manager of space exploration, said in a statement. "It is essential for the ISS and the nation that we have adequate funding to move at a rapid pace toward operations so the United States does not continue its dependence on a single system for human access to the ISS."
Of the winners, SpaceX is the only company to have its contender spaceflight-proven.
In May, SpaceX became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and have it dock with the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule was only carrying supplies at the time, but it was a technological and financial feat that had been accomplished before only by the world's most powerful government entities.
The Dragon capsule is designed to carry seven astronauts, but SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said it still needed upgrades before an astronaut could strap in. The company is aiming for a manned test flight by 2015.
SpaceX won $440 million from NASA to develop its hardware. The space agency has also awarded the company a $1.6-billion contract to have SpaceX's Dragon deliver cargo to the space station -- with trips possibly starting later this year.
“This is a decisive milestone in human spaceflight and sets an exciting course for the next phase of American space exploration,” Musk said in a statement. “SpaceX, along with our partners at NASA, will continue to push the boundaries of space technology to develop the safest, most advanced crew vehicle ever flown.”
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket
lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., toward the International Space
Station earlier this year.
(Craig Rubadoux / Associated Press / May 22, 2012)
On Friday, NASA handed out $1.1 billion in contracts to three companies to privately develop rockets and spacecraft for what could be the next step in manned spaceflight. The announcement was made by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on a cloudless day from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The winners included Hawthorne-based rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, and Boeing Co., which develops spacecraft in Huntington Beach and uses rocket engines made by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park.
The other award was given to Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nev., which is building a space plane that closely resembles a mini-space shuttle.
The goal of the funding "is to bring human spaceflight launches back to U.S. soil and end outsourcing of these important jobs," Bolden said at the news conference.
The awards are part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, which lays the groundwork for the potentially multibillion-dollar job of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
NASA is providing seed money to these companies to compete and create a new private space race. The United States currently has no way to travel to the International Space Station other than shelling out $63 million for rides on a Russian Soyuz rocket.
Boeing engineers in Huntington Beach and Houston are working to develop a seven-person spaceship, dubbed the Crew Space Transportation-100, that is designed to fly atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The company won $460 million, the largest of the three awards, and expects the space capsule to be ready for test flights by 2016.
"Today's award demonstrates NASA's confidence in Boeing's approach to provide commercial crew transportation services for the [International Space Station]," John Elbon, Boeing vice president and general manager of space exploration, said in a statement. "It is essential for the ISS and the nation that we have adequate funding to move at a rapid pace toward operations so the United States does not continue its dependence on a single system for human access to the ISS."
Of the winners, SpaceX is the only company to have its contender spaceflight-proven.
In May, SpaceX became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and have it dock with the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule was only carrying supplies at the time, but it was a technological and financial feat that had been accomplished before only by the world's most powerful government entities.
The Dragon capsule is designed to carry seven astronauts, but SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said it still needed upgrades before an astronaut could strap in. The company is aiming for a manned test flight by 2015.
SpaceX won $440 million from NASA to develop its hardware. The space agency has also awarded the company a $1.6-billion contract to have SpaceX's Dragon deliver cargo to the space station -- with trips possibly starting later this year.
“This is a decisive milestone in human spaceflight and sets an exciting course for the next phase of American space exploration,” Musk said in a statement. “SpaceX, along with our partners at NASA, will continue to push the boundaries of space technology to develop the safest, most advanced crew vehicle ever flown.”
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
NASA/NSBRI Solicitation for Crew Health and Performance in Space Exploration Missions
From Space Ref: NASA/NSBRI Solicitation for Crew Health and Performance in Space Exploration Missions
A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Announcement (NRA), entitled, "Research and Technology Development to Support Crew Health and Performance in Space Exploration Missions" (NRA NNJ12ZSA002N), has been released which jointly solicits ground-based, analog definition and flight definition proposals for the NASA Human Research Program (HRP) and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). This NRA is available through the NASA Research Opportunities homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and then linking through the menu listings "Solicitations" to "Open Solicitations." On the Open Solicitations page, select NNJ12ZSA002N from the list of Solicitations.
Proposals are solicited by NASA in the areas of Sensorimotor Impairment and Space Motion Sickness; Epidemiological Evidence of Spaceflight Induced Cardiovascular Disease; Computational Models of Cephalad Fluid Shifts; Spaceflight Biochemical Profile; Maintenance and Regulation of Team Function and Performance over Extended Durations; and Development of Safety and Efficiency Metrics for Human-Automation Systems. NASA is also soliciting investigations or technologies lasting no more than one year that provide innovative approaches to any of the defined risks contained in the Integrated Research Plan (http://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov) of the Human Research Program.
Proposals are solicited by NSBRI in the areas of Cardiovascular Alterations; Human Factors and Performance; Musculoskeletal Alterations; Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors; Sensorimotor Adaptation; and Smart Medical Systems and Technology.
Proposals responding to the NASA emphases and NSBRI emphases must be submitted separately, and will result in separate evaluations and awards. Step-1 proposals are due on September 4, 2012, and invited Step-2 proposals are due on December 3, 2012. Participation is open to all categories of organizations, including educational institutions, industry, nonprofit organizations, NASA centers, and other Government agencies.
Proposals solicited through this NRA will use a two-step proposal process. Only Step-1 proposers determined to be relevant with respect to the solicited research of this NRA will be invited to submit full Step-2 proposals. Proposals must be submitted electronically. Step-1 proposals to NASA may be submitted via the NASA Proposal data system NSPIRES (http://nspires.nasaprs.com) or via Grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov). Invited Step-2 proposals to NASA must be submitted via NSPIRES. Both Step-1 and Step-2 proposals to NSBRI must be submitted via NSPIRES.
This email is being sent on behalf of HRP and NSBRI and is intended as an information announcement to the research community related to the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) Human Research Program (HRP).
Thank you for your continued interest in NASA and NSBRI. Please refer to the solicitation document for contact information.
A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Announcement (NRA), entitled, "Research and Technology Development to Support Crew Health and Performance in Space Exploration Missions" (NRA NNJ12ZSA002N), has been released which jointly solicits ground-based, analog definition and flight definition proposals for the NASA Human Research Program (HRP) and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). This NRA is available through the NASA Research Opportunities homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and then linking through the menu listings "Solicitations" to "Open Solicitations." On the Open Solicitations page, select NNJ12ZSA002N from the list of Solicitations.
Proposals are solicited by NASA in the areas of Sensorimotor Impairment and Space Motion Sickness; Epidemiological Evidence of Spaceflight Induced Cardiovascular Disease; Computational Models of Cephalad Fluid Shifts; Spaceflight Biochemical Profile; Maintenance and Regulation of Team Function and Performance over Extended Durations; and Development of Safety and Efficiency Metrics for Human-Automation Systems. NASA is also soliciting investigations or technologies lasting no more than one year that provide innovative approaches to any of the defined risks contained in the Integrated Research Plan (http://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov) of the Human Research Program.
Proposals are solicited by NSBRI in the areas of Cardiovascular Alterations; Human Factors and Performance; Musculoskeletal Alterations; Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors; Sensorimotor Adaptation; and Smart Medical Systems and Technology.
Proposals responding to the NASA emphases and NSBRI emphases must be submitted separately, and will result in separate evaluations and awards. Step-1 proposals are due on September 4, 2012, and invited Step-2 proposals are due on December 3, 2012. Participation is open to all categories of organizations, including educational institutions, industry, nonprofit organizations, NASA centers, and other Government agencies.
Proposals solicited through this NRA will use a two-step proposal process. Only Step-1 proposers determined to be relevant with respect to the solicited research of this NRA will be invited to submit full Step-2 proposals. Proposals must be submitted electronically. Step-1 proposals to NASA may be submitted via the NASA Proposal data system NSPIRES (http://nspires.nasaprs.com) or via Grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov). Invited Step-2 proposals to NASA must be submitted via NSPIRES. Both Step-1 and Step-2 proposals to NSBRI must be submitted via NSPIRES.
This email is being sent on behalf of HRP and NSBRI and is intended as an information announcement to the research community related to the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) Human Research Program (HRP).
Thank you for your continued interest in NASA and NSBRI. Please refer to the solicitation document for contact information.
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