And Don't forget this afternoons AMF group going away/retirement party for the 5 amigos from EP from 2pm to 4pm in the Building 15 Lobby—Bob Egusquiza, Jon Hall, Scott Baird, Sam Jones, and Bernie Rosenbaum.
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday – Feb. 18, 2015
We've realized that the Human Space Flight news distribution is duplicating efforts when there are so many sources of virtually the same material made available to you quickly and easily these days. We'd like to point you to some of the resources we're aware of and discontinue collecting and distributing this edition after Feb. 27. We appreciate your attention to the news summaries over the years, and we will continue to focus our efforts on getting NASA's missions and your stories into the media.
Many external sources provide email distribution and/or website collection of stories, including:
Space Coalition
Space Today
Space Politics
Space Daily
Spaceflight Now
FAA News Updates
JSC External Relations
Public Affairs Office
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Space Groups Planning New and Revived Advocacy Activities
Jeff Foust — Space News
The beginning of debate on NASA's 2016 budget proposal is also the kickoff for a new series of space advocacy activities scheduled for the next month, including an invitation-only "space summit" and the resurrection of a grass-roots space lobbying campaign.
What Would It Be Like to Live on Mars?
The idea of living on Mars has been a staple of science fiction since the 19th century, when American astronomer Percival Lowell speculated that the channels on the Red Planet were really ancient canals built by intelligent extraterrestrials.
Soyuz rocket boosts Russian cargo craft to space station
Russia launched a Progress resupply mission Tuesday heading for the International Space Station with more than 6,000 pounds of fuel, supplies and experiments to support the lab's six-person crew, and the automated cargo craft sailed to a smooth link-up with the complex less than six hours later.
Next Stop, Europa: Q&A with NASA's 'Mohawk Guy' Bobak Ferdowsi
Plans to visit Europa, Jupiter's icy moon with a subsurface ocean, just became a bit more concrete. Scientists think the planet is one of the top places in the solar system that could support alien life.
Keeping America Safe -- From a Million Miles Away
When it comes to keeping America's communities and businesses safe and secure, we can't take our eyes off the sun. That vigilance is ensured with last week's successful launch of DSCOVR -- the Deep Space Climate Observatory. DSCOVR will operate 24/7, alerting forecasters when large magnetic eruptions are headed toward Earth from the red-hot star at the center of our solar system.
COMPLETE STORIES
Space Groups Planning New and Revived Advocacy Activities
Jeff Foust — Space News
The beginning of debate on NASA's 2016 budget proposal is also the kickoff for a new series of space advocacy activities scheduled for the next month, including an invitation-only "space summit" and the resurrection of a grass-roots space lobbying campaign.
The Pioneering Space National Summit, taking place Feb. 19-20 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center here, is intended to be a "broadly based gathering of national level decision makers" and others to identify what it calls "strategic knowledge gaps" that prevent greater space development and settlement activities, according to the event's website.
Participation in the summit is by invitation only, and is organized by the New Worlds Institute, a project of the EarthLight Foundation, a Texas-based nonprofit organization founded by long-time space advocate Rick Tumlinson. Neither Tumlinson nor others organizing the summit responded to questions about the event.
The event's agenda, posted on its website, consists primarily of a series of working group sessions. The first day is devoted to issues of vision and strategy regarding spaceflight, while the second examines knowledge gaps that need to be closed to enable that strategy.
In a speech at the SpaceVision 2014 conference in November in Durham, North Carolina, Tumlinson indicated that participants in the event would be expected to come to a consensus on steps that need to be taken to address those knowledge gaps. "That is going to be pushed out into the world as an agreement between people in our community," he said.
Another long-time space advocate is reviving a grass-roots lobbying effort focused on space transportation and related issues. March Storm started in 1995 as a project of the Space Frontier Foundation, with a handful of individuals visiting congressional offices, seeking support for government programs and related policy initiatives to support more affordable space access and commercial space activities.
The annual event, named for the month it took place and the wave of participants who spent up to a week on Capitol Hill, went on hiatus several years ago. Charles Miller, one of the founders of the original event, is now restarting it. "It worked well in the 1990s, but I wasn't in a position until now to reorganize it," he said in a Feb. 11 interview.
This year's event, planned for March 15-19, will address a range of issues, according to the "Citizen's Space Agenda" posted on the March Storm website. They include full funding of NASA's commercial crew program, extension of the current restrictions on safety regulations for commercial human spaceflight, and creation of a "Cheap Access To Space" prize.
Miller said he anticipates at least 30 people participating in this year's March Storm, which would allow them to meet with at least 200 offices. He said a number of organizations, including the Space Frontier Foundation and National Space Society (NSS), are helping coordinate this year's event.
The early success of March Storm — Miller credited it with a variety of legislative successes, including passage of commercial launch acts in 1998 and 2004 — had led other organizations to adopt similar lobbying efforts. The Space Exploration Alliance, a coalition of 10 organizations, has held a "Legislative Blitz" on policy issues since 2004.
The 2015 Legislative Blitz, scheduled for Feb. 22-24, will include meetings with more than 150 congressional offices, with about 70 people participating, event organizer Rick Zucker said Feb. 12. This year's agenda is still tentative, he said, but will likely include requests for support for both human spaceflight and robotic space science missions.
Despite the proximity of the Legislative Blitz to March Storm, and some overlap in participation — NSS is supporting both events — both Miller and Zucker said there were no plans to coordinate the two events or even combine them.
Miller argued that March Storm thrived in the past on developing its own specific, coherent agenda and set of legislative priorities. "We've been very successful with that approach," he said. "March Storm is kind of unique."
What Would It Be Like to Live on Mars?
The idea of living on Mars has been a staple of science fiction since the 19th century, when American astronomer Percival Lowell speculated that the channels on the Red Planet were really ancient canals built by intelligent extraterrestrials.
But if this sci-fi dream were to ever become reality, what would it be like to actually live on Mars?
In 1965, NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft completed the first Martian flyby, and six years later, the Soviet Union's Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to land softly on Mars. Since then, there have been numerous successful missions to the Red Planet, including the deployment of four Mars rovers — the now-defunct Sojourner and Spirit, and the still-active Opportunity and Curiosity — and NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which produced a map of the entire planet. [How Living on Mars Would Be Challenging (Infographic)] NASA is now planning for a manned mission to Mars, which is slated for the 2030s.
It's unknown where astronauts will land on Mars for that mission, but for a future Martian space colony, "you'd probably want a permanent base somewhere in the low northern latitudes," Ashwin Vasavada, a deputy project scientist for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, told Space.com. Like Earth, Mars has seasons due to the planet's tilt upon its axis, but it also has a secondary seasonal effect because of its highly elliptical orbit. The southern hemisphere is pointed away from the sun when the planet is farthest from it, resulting in far colder winters (and far hotter summers) than those in the northern hemisphere.
If you were to live in the northern hemisphere, you'd enjoy about seven months of spring, six months of summer, a little more than five months of fall and only about four months of winter. (A year on Mars is about 1.88 Earth years, and a day lasts a little more than 24 hours.)
The average temperature on Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 60 Celsius), but temps can range from minus 195 F (minus 126 C) in winter near the poles to 68 F (20 C) during summer near the equator. The temperatures can also change dramatically within a single week.
Mars' temperature variations often result in powerful dust storms, which can sometimes shroud the entire planet after just a few days. Though these storms probably wouldn't physically harm you, the dust could clog electronics and interfere with solar-powered instruments, Vasavada said.
At just 1 percent the density of Earth's atmosphere, the Martian atmosphere is thick enough to burn up meteors smaller than marbles — meteors larger than that are relatively rare, so you'd be unlikely to get hit by them, Vasavada said. You also wouldn't have to worry much about volcanic and tectonic activity while living on Mars.
"The No. 1 thing an astronaut would be worried about is the radiation from space," Vasavada said. Unlike Earth, Mars doesn't have a global magnetic field and thick atmosphere to protect its surface from radiation.
If you were to experience some unfortunate incident, a message sent home to Earth would take an average of 15 minutes to get there. While not terribly long, "it's definitely annoying enough that it'd be hard to Skype with anybody," Vasavada said.
In terms of weather, you might see an occasional wispy cloud or cold morning frost because Martian air contains low levels of moisture from the polar ice caps. But you wouldn't find any storm clouds in the sky or raindrops hitting the ground.
With these clear skies, the Martian night is full of stars. Amateur astronomers would want to look out for Mars' moons, Deimos and Phobos, which can come out at the same time. These satellites, both of which are far smaller than Earth's moon, can also partially eclipse the sun during the day.
The daytime sky generally has an orange tint to it because of all the dust, Vasavada said. Sunrise and sunsets look similar to those on Earth during a very hazy day, except that the area around the sun is blue.
The surface of Mars offers up a few great opportunities for sightseeing. "If we were to completely colonize Mars, there are certainly places that would become national parks," Vasavada said.
For example, Olympus Mons is the tallest volcano in the solar system, reaching 16 miles (25 kilometers) above its surrounding plains. Valles Marineris, on the other hand, is a giant system of valleys about the distance from Los Angeles to New York. And you'd also probably want to visit the Viking landers and Mars' tremendous polar ice caps, which sometimes get dry ice snowfall, Vasavada said.
But with a gravity that's only 38 percent of Earth's, getting around on Mars would be challenging at first. "Running and fast movements would probably take quite a bit of relearning," Vasavada said. "But it'd be better than moving around on the moon."
Soyuz rocket boosts Russian cargo craft to space station
Russia launched a Progress resupply mission Tuesday heading for the International Space Station with more than 6,000 pounds of fuel, supplies and experiments to support the lab's six-person crew, and the automated cargo craft sailed to a smooth link-up with the complex less than six hours later.
A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1100:17 GMT (6:00:17 a.m. EST), or 5 p.m. local time at the Central Asia space base.
The three-stage launcher burned a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen as it powered into orbit with the Progress M-26M supply ship. After disappearing into low clouds about 20 seconds after liftoff, the Soyuz rocket shed four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters, jettisoned a protective shroud covering the Progress payload, then released its main core stage.
The launcher's upper stage deployed the 16,065-pound Progress cargo freighter into orbit less than nine minutes into the mission. The Progress M-26M spacecraft completed pre-programmed commands to extend its power-generating solar panels and navigation antennas moments later, according to Rob Navias, a NASA spokesperson.
"A perfect launch, and a perfect ascent to its preliminary orbit for the Progress (M-26M) cargo ship," Navias said in NASA TV's broadcast of the launch.
The spacecraft entered an on-target orbit with a low point of about 120 miles and a high point of 153 miles, with a ground track tilted at an angle of 51.65 degrees to the equator, according to a post-launch statement released by RSC Energia, Russia's prime contractor for space station operations.
The Progress resupply ship — known as Progress 58P in the space station's official flight manifest — to executed a series of rocket burns to adjust its path toward the complex.
On a final approach guided with data from a Kurs rendezvous radar, the Progress spacecraft lined up with the space station's aft docking port on the Zvezda service module, where it docked at 1657 GMT (11:57 a.m. EST), five hours and 57 minutes after liftoff.
The link-up occurred 257 miles over the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Puerto Rico.
Cosmonauts on the space station were ready to take over manual control of the supply ship if there were problems with its autopilot system.
The fast-track rendezvous required precise timing of the Soyuz rocket's launch from Baiknour, which occurred a few minutes after the space station passed directly overhead the historic launch base in Kazakhstan.
The Progress M-26M spacecraft delivered 3.1 tons of cargo, rocket propellant, water and oxygen to the space station.
The ship's forward pressurized section carries 3,229 pounds of provisions and equipment, including 813 pounds of food, 577 pounds of sanitary items and 471 pounds of crew medical supplies.
The internal cargo also includes hardware for the space station's electrical and thermal control systems, clothes, cameras, watches, smoke detectors and science experiments.
The Progress M-26M mission also delivered 306 pounds of U.S. cargo for the space station crew.
The Russian supply ship will pump 939 pounds of propellant into the Zvezda service module's propulsion system for use in future reboost maneuvers and emergency burns to steer clear of space junk. Another allotment of propellant is set aside for the Progress to perform its own orbit adjustments when docked to the space station.
The space station also received about 925 pounds of fresh water and 110 pounds of oxygen carried aboard the Progress M-26M spacecraft.
Next Stop, Europa: Q&A with NASA's 'Mohawk Guy' Bobak Ferdowsi
Plans to visit Europa, Jupiter's icy moon with a subsurface ocean, just became a bit more concrete. Scientists think the planet is one of the top places in the solar system that could support alien life.
This month, the White House released its fiscal year 2016 budget request for NASA, which included $30 million for a mission to Europa. If funded, the mission would likely be something akin to the Europa Clipper, a proposed spacecraft that would make a number of flybys of the mysterious moon, probing its icy shell and subsurface ocean.
Bobak Ferdowsi, a systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, is a mission planner for the proposed Europa Clipper. Ferdowsi also worked on the Mars rover Curiosity mission, and gained overnight fame as "Mohawk Guy" for his hairstyle on the night of the rover's harrowing Red Planet descent. [Mars Rover Curiosity's Landing Day at JPL (Photos)] Space.com caught up with Ferdowsi last September at the science and sci-fi convention HawaiiCon, on Hawaii's Big Island, to discuss the proposed Europa mission, what it was like working on Curiosity, and life as an instant celebrity. The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Bobak Ferdowsi: Like Mars, Europa has been a part of our lore of space for a long time. "2010: Odyssey Two," science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke's 1982 sequel to "2001: A Space Odyssey," famously warned: "All these worlds are yours except Europa: Attempt no landings there." Luckily, Clarke later gave NASA "permission," during a teleconference, to visit the planet.
We believe Europa's crust has a large, salty ocean underneath. It has the ingredients for life – water, warmth and chemicals from the core, like we see on Earth. We think Europa's ocean has probably persisted for a long enough time for life to arise. Europa is like one of those bucket-list places. Who doesn't want to go in a submarine under the surface and look for creatures like whales?
Space.com: What would a Europa mission involve? Would it be like the film "Europa Report?" Ferdowsi: We were assigned money from Congress for a Europa study. At JPL, we envision a mission consisting of a series of flybys, in which a spacecraft will swoop by the planet for a couple hours at a time, in a highly elliptical orbit lasting roughly two weeks. Jupiter has a strong magnetic field whose radiation could wreak havoc on electronics if it spent more time near the planet. The spacecraft would slowly move its orbit around in order to capture Europa from all sides. The flybys would be reconnaissance for a future mission when we might land on this moon.
The potential launch date would be 2022 [current estimates put the date in the mid-2020s]. We could be there 2.5 to seven years later. We're going through the mission concept review, and we're hoping to get selected in the next year or so. I'm very optimistic that NASA as a whole is going to do some sort of Europa mission.
Space.com: You also worked as a mission planner on the Curiosity mission. What was it like during those "seven minutes of terror"? Ferdowsi: Curiosity was the first thing I worked on at JPL. I joined as a mission planner not too long after it went from the study phase to the mission phase. Finally, after about 10 years on the project, the spacecraft was about to land on Mars. There's no second chance. Once you're hitting the top of the atmosphere, in those seven minutes, the spacecraft is entirely on its own, doing all these things for the first time. We simulated it on Earth and tested what we could, but to see all come together for first time on Mars was a tense moment. [7 Minutes of Terror: Curiosity Rover's Risky Mars Landing (Video)] During the landing, controllers on Earth couldn't lock onto a signal from the spacecraft, so we could only communicate with it in one of two ways. The spacecraft sent back pings, or "notes," which told you what the spacecraft last did, what it was about to do, and so on. And some of the time, the craft was also talking to Mars orbiters, which could relay information to us.
The landing itself was a really weird sort of stress, because of the light delay between Mars and Earth (Mars is 14 minutes away). Even when you're just about to start this crazy landing, it's already been done for seven minutes. Whatever the result is, it's over. And so many things were one-time-only: The parachute had to deploy, incendiary bolts called pyros had to fire and cut away parts of the spacecraft, the sky crane had to lower us to the ground. It's kind of crazy when you think about all the things that had to happen.
Ferdowsi: My hair was a tradition for the big efforts during the mission. For system tests, I started shaving the number of the test on the side of my head. For launch day, I did a very brightly colored haircut that looked like a rocket flame, fading from red to gold. I think the team knew I was going to do something for the landing. My boss sent out an email asking what my hair should look like, for example, "Mars red," red, white and blue, even a reverse mohawk (which I definitely did not want to do). The favorite was red, white and blue.
Space.com: What was it like to become an instant celebrity? Nobody gets into engineering or science thinking, I'm going to be famous. But I think the nerd stereotype is changing. It's been a long time since the public saw a NASA control room.
I grew up wanting to be a part of the space program at NASA and JPL. To have the opportunity to represent the family I love so much and to be able to talk to people and share the excitement is really an honor. The best part for me is getting to talk to high school kids who are interested in NASA about how much fun it is when that many people come together with a singular focus, to build a roving science laboratory on Mars. NASA may be American, but the effort was very international. Landing on Mars felt like a very human moment to me.
Keeping America Safe -- From a Million Miles Away
When it comes to keeping America's communities and businesses safe and secure, we can't take our eyes off the sun. That vigilance is ensured with last week's successful launch of DSCOVR -- the Deep Space Climate Observatory. DSCOVR will operate 24/7, alerting forecasters when large magnetic eruptions are headed toward Earth from the red-hot star at the center of our solar system.
The need for DSCOVR, a NOAA space weather observing satellite, is critical. From sporadic solar flares to electrically-charged blasts of gas exploding from the sun at up to 6,000,000 miles per hour, "space weather" has the potential to severely disrupt our lives and livelihoods. A range of technologies is threatened, from telecommunications and power grids to the countless GPS applications vital to our daily lives and national and local economies. In an increasingly wired world, space weather poses serious risk to essential, yet vulnerable infrastructure.
The scale of vulnerability is daunting. In 2013, a Lloyds of London study predicted that the most extreme space weather storms could affect 20 to 40 million people in the U.S. and cause up to $2.6 trillion in damages, with recovery taking up to two years. A 2013 US Department of Energy report found that by triggering cascading failures across multiple infrastructures and systems space weather could have broad regional or even global impact.
While space weather storms tend to peak in roughly 11-year cycles, these events can be random. DSCOVR's launch from Cape Canaveral offers vast benefits to America's communities and businesses already wrestling with the hazards of severe weather and accelerating challenges from climate change. Investing in DSCOVR as a steadfast sentinel to warn of dangerous disturbances in the solar wind reflects NOAA's and the Administration's commitment to increasing our nation's resiliency through Earth monitoring and sound science.
DSCOVR's observations, for instance, will provide continuous environmental intelligence to protect the stability of power grids. Such environmental intelligence can mean the difference between keeping the lights on, and a blackout like the one in 1989 that left millions of Canadians in the dark for up to nine hours and the similar blackout that struck Swedish residents in 2003. It can make a life-saving difference in emergency response, and in access and accuracy to information for everyone relying on GPS services.
NOAA, NASA and the Air Force worked together to get DSCOVR off the ground, and the mission is not just to monitor the sun and its dangerous emissions. A NASA instrument called EPIC will capture the entire sunlit side of Earth in one image. Because DSCOVR will orbit a location four times further than the Moon's orbit -- one million miles from Earth -- it will be able to capture this image. In contrast, most Earth observing satellites circle our planet within 22,300 miles. A second instrument, the National Institute of Standards and Technology's NISTAR, will drive our understanding of climate science, providing important information about the amount of solar energy Earth is retaining or radiating back into space. These unprecedented observations will yield valuable insights about Earth's energy balance, weather, climate, hydrology and ecology. DSCOVR's data will be freely available to the public, opening the door to benefits for U.S. communities and local and national economies that we can barely imagine.
DSCOVR is an outstanding contribution to the Earth monitoring tools that will help make America and our world more resilient.
END
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- What's Love Got to Do With it?
- News Junkies--We Have Your Fix
- Operation: Repair and Reclaim Bikes!
- JSC Exceptional Software Award Nominees Due Soon
- NBL Views: CATV and IPTV - Organizations/Social
- Today: Co-Labs Presents Smart Glasses
- The Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K is Back
- Spring Craft Fair/Flea Market Accepting Vendors
- Eighth NASA Golf Tournament - Spots Filling Fast - Jobs and Training
- Masters With Masters Live Webcast Today
- New Tool to Find Lateral Job Opportunities: NETS
- ISS EDMS User Forum
- Schedule Sharing With Project Server
- Lockout/Tagout Feb. 24, 8 a.m. - B20, Rm 205/206
- APPEL - Foundations of Aerospace - April 13 to 17
- ISS Payload Safety Process & Requirements, April 2 - Community
- Deadline Approaching for AgCAS
- Blood Drive: Today and Tomorrow |  |
| Headlines - What's Love Got to Do With it?
Not much. But genetics has a lot to do with it. A Stanford researcher studied fruit fly heart function and gene expression aboard space station to understand astronaut heart health. We share more genes with fruit flies than you might think ... - News Junkies--We Have Your Fix
Interested in NASA in the news? We'd like to point you to some resources just clicks away. Many external sources also provide email distribution and/or website collection of stories, including: Subscribe, bookmark … and be in the know. - Operation: Repair and Reclaim Bikes!
Checked the bike racks lately? Inoperable and unsafe bikes will be tagged out with an orange-and-black notice reading "DO NOT OPERATE" for at least 30 days, giving any organization or personal owners time to fill out the top section of the tag and remove the perforated bottom section, thereby "claiming" the bike. After 30 days, bikes not claimed will be removed from the racks and either repaired or salvaged for useful parts by JSC Center Ops. Bikes repaired will be added to the fleet of "free-range bikes," which will stay useful for longer thanks to some new initiatives led by JSC Center Ops. These new initiatives focus on YOU, the cycling community at JSC. Become part of this growing community and join the new JSC discussion forum for this and many other cycling-related topics. - JSC Exceptional Software Award Nominees Due Soon
The JSC Exceptional Software Award is designed to recognize software that has demonstrated outstanding value to accomplishing the JSC mission. Nominees will be considered for the following awards: - JSC Exceptional Software Award: Up to $10,000 total award possible
- JSC nominee for the NASA Software of the Year Award: Up to $100,000 total award possible
- JSC software nominees for the Space Act Awards: Up to $100,000 awarded in variable amounts
- NASA Exceptional Technology
JSC directorates and individuals must provide their nominations by close of business Feb. 24 via the Web form in the link above. - NBL Views: CATV and IPTV
There will be temporary/intermittent outages of JSC's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory camera views during a maintenance period today, Feb. 18. Organizations/Social - Today: Co-Labs Presents Smart Glasses
Please join us for a very special presentation by Ralph Osterhout, CEO of ODG, as he discusses their new augmented reality glasses and their collaboration partnership with the Engineering Directorate. ODG's smart glasses are designed to be the hands-free computer of tomorrow: fully integrated, untethered devices that have the power to redefine what can be done on the go. Come hear about this exciting new technology and explore/brainstorm the possibilities of use here at JSC. More information will be posted on our Google+ site—just search "JSC Co-Labs." Date: TODAY, Feb. 18 Time: 10:45 to 11:30 a.m. Location: Building 2, Studio B Hope to see you all there! - The Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K is Back
A BATTLE TO DETERMINE THE ULTIMATE LIFE FORM! Starport is proud to present the second Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K. Race participants will register as either an alien or astronaut, with times for each species being averaged to crown the fastest lifeform in the universe. Gather your alien and astronaut friends and family! This 5.05K (3.14-mile) race is open to the public. Date/Time: April 5 at 9 a.m. Where: Race begins at the Gilruth Center and runs through JSC Prizes: Overall male and female; first-, second- and third-place finishers in each age category Early Registration Fee: $25 (includes race dri-fit for those registered by April 4, with a portion of proceeds going to the NASA Exchange Scholarship Program) For more information and online registration, visit the Starport website. Signups are available online and at the Gilruth Center. - Spring Craft Fair/Flea Market Accepting Vendors
Starport will host its annual Spring Festival event at the Gilruth Center on Saturday, April 4, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Not only will there be the Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K Race, Children's Spring Fling complete with Easter bunny and egg hunt, bounce house, petting zoo and games, but we will also host a flea market and craft fair. Clean out those closets, attics and garages and sell your unwanted items and homemade crafts at one big event! Register now for booth rentals. Get a flea market booth to sell your unwanted items for just $10. Or, feature homemade crafts, baked goods or new items with a craft fair booth for $40 (tables and electricity available for an additional fee). All registrations and payments must be received by March 20. The registration form and more information available can be found here. - Eighth NASA Golf Tournament - Spots Filling Fast
Attention Golfers! Registration is open and filling fast. The Eighth Annual NASA Golf Tournament will be our biggest and best one yet. Proceeds generated by the tournament directly fund the JSC Scholarship Program. The tournament will once again be held over two days at Magnolia Creek Golf Club. Tournament Date 1: - Thursday, April 16
- 8 a.m. shotgun start
-- OR -- Tournament Date 2: - Friday, April 17
- 8 a.m. shotgun start
Registration fee includes green fees, driving range, 2015 NASA golf polo, breakfast taco bar, fajita lunch, participation bag, silent auction entry, drink tickets, tournament awards, door prizes and more. Register your team today. Don't miss out on this great event! Jobs and Training - Masters With Masters Live Webcast Today
Join Dr. Ed Hoffman, NASA Chief Knowledge Officer, for this special Masters with Masters live webcast as he interviews two NASA knowledge practitioners about the agency's challenges of ensuring lessons are captured and distilled for easier access and application for project and mission success. "Capturing, Processing, Sharing and Learning Lessons at NASA" will be available for viewing from noon to 1:30 p.m. CST. RSVP to attend this live webcast session to ensure you receive the direct link to the webcast and allow us to communicate with you if necessary. Our webcasts use Silverlight Player, which must be installed on your computer prior to the event. To test your computer configuration and learn how to use the player controls to submit questions and find related material, please view this "Tour the Player" video in advance of the webcast. If you do not have Silverlight installed already, this video will redirect you to a location where you can download and install Silverlight. Please do this well in advance of the live event, as some centers require administrator privileges to install software. Event Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2015 Event Start Time:12:00 PM Event End Time:1:30 PM
Event Location: Webcast
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NASA Masters with Masters Team http://km.nasa.gov/
[top] - New Tool to Find Lateral Job Opportunities: NETS
JSC Human Resources (HR) is proud to announce the release of the NASA Employee Talent Search (NETS) tool, an improved way for managers to post and employees to search and apply to lateral job opportunities, including non-promotional reassignments, details and project teams. (This is replacing the Workforce Transition tool/JOB tool). To apply to a position: - Visit the site
- Click on "Search Opportunities"
- View "All Lateral Opportunities"
- Select a position listed as "Open"
- Review the position
- Follow the prompts to apply
Live Labs for Managers, AOs, Budget Reps and HR: Feb. 18 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. - Building 12, Room 144 Feb. 23 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. - Building 12, Room 144 Feb. 24 from 8 to 10:30 a.m. - Building 12, Room 138 March 3 from 8 to 10:30 a.m. - Building 12, Room 138 Brown Bags for anyone: Feb. 19 from noon to 1 p.m. - Building 30 Auditorium Feb. 24 from noon to 1 p.m. - Building 30 Auditorium Feb. 25 from 10 to 11 a.m. - Building 30 Auditorium Please use Chrome, Firefox 20+, Safari, IE 11+ or mobile devices. - ISS EDMS User Forum
The International Science Science Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) team will hold the monthly General User Training Forum tomorrow, Feb. 19, at 9:30 a.m. in Building 4S, Room 5315. Lync meeting and telecom provided. If you use EDMS to locate station documents, join us to learn about basic navigation and searching. Bring your questions, concerns and suggestions and meet the EDMS Customer Service team. The agenda is located here. - Schedule Sharing With Project Server
Need a way to share your schedules to encourage collaboration and awareness? Engineering's Adrienne Bibby will join the JSC Scheduling Community of Practice (CoP) as our guest speaker to provide an overview of the scheduling capabilities of Project Server. Her session will cover basic functionality of the tool, lessons learned, as well as a live demo. Interested in becoming a member of the JSC Scheduling CoP? The CoP was created to provide training for and communication amongst schedule practitioners at JSC to improve scheduling practices and efficacy. For more information, contact us. - Lockout/Tagout Feb. 24, 8 a.m. - B20, Rm 205/206
The purpose of this course is to provide employees with the standards, procedures and requirements necessary for the control of hazardous energy through lockout and tagout of energy-isolating devices. Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard 29 CFR 1910.147, "The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout)," is the basis for this course. A comprehensive test will be offered at the end of the class. Use this direct link for registration. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... - APPEL - Foundations of Aerospace - April 13 to 17
The goal of this five-day learning experience is to immerse participants into the meaning of working at NASA and the principles of technical excellence. This aerospace foundations course provides the big picture overview of NASA, its governance model and operations. NASA leadership and various technical experts will provide insights into the organization and inner workings of the agency. This course is designed for all NASA employees to educate them about NASA's strategic direction, its missions, governance structures, technical guidelines and mission directorate programs and projects, as well as NASA's past, present and future. This course is available for self-registration in SATERN until Wednesday, March 11. It is open to civil servants and contractors. Dates: Monday to Friday, April 13 to 17 Location: Building 12, Room 152 - ISS Payload Safety Process & Requirements, April 2
This eight-hour course is intended as an overview of International Space Station (ISS) requirements and will introduce payload safety/hazard analysis processes. It is intended for those who may be supervising or assisting those with the responsibility for identifying, controlling and documenting ISS payload hazards. It briefly describes ISS payload-safety requirements (both technical and procedural) and discusses their application to payload analysis, review, certification and verification. Those with primary payload-safety responsibilities should attend SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0011, ISS Payload Safety Review and Analysis. Use this direct link for registration. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... Event Date: Thursday, April 2, 2015 Event Start Time:8:00 AM Event End Time:4:00 PM
Event Location: Bldg. 20 Room 205/206
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[top] Community - Deadline Approaching for AgCAS
JSC is paving the way for the next generation farmers … in space! This spring, Agriculture Community College Aerospace Scholars (AgCAS) is launching for Texas community college students who have an interest in space agriculture or life sciences. Participants will complete online modules to qualify and compete to attend the on-site experience at JSC. Once on-site, students will interact with NASA scientists and engineers; complete design challenges on topics related to farming and plant research, remote sensing, engineering and sustainability; and tour working facilities. If you know someone who thinks space colonization seems intriguing or would like to experience this unique program, please share the information. Pass it on to your Texas alma mater. The deadline is just one week away—Feb. 25. - Blood Drive: Today and Tomorrow
Eat, drink and bring ID! You can donate blood at one of the following locations on Feb. 18 and 19: - Teague Auditorium lobby - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Building 11 café donor coach - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Gilruth Center donor coach - Noon to 4 p.m. (Thursday only)
T-shirts, snacks and drinks are available for all donors. Criteria for donating can be found at the St. Luke's link on our website. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
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