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NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Friday – Feb. 20, 2015
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HEADLINES AND LEADS
Spacewalks kick off major station modifications
William Harwood – CBS News
NASA space station managers decided Thursday to delay the first two of three planned spacewalks by one day to give flight controllers and engineers a chance to catch their collective breath after exhaustive troubleshooting to verify the health of critical internal spacesuit components.
Upgraded Antares Rocket To Fly to ISS in March 2016
OrbitalATK President and CEO David Thompson said today that the company plans the first flight of its upgraded Antares rocket on March 1, 2016 from Wallops Flight Facility, VA. An Antares exploded at liftoff in October 2014 destroying a Cygnus capsule loaded with supplies for the International Space Station (ISS). The upgraded Antares will use a different rocket engine.
Astronauts Repair Space Station Satellite Deployer
Jeff Foust – Space News
Astronauts on the International Space Station have made repairs to a set of small satellite deployers that malfunctioned several months ago, a move that the company that provided them calls a milestone for commercial activities there.
Space to Grow
Science and politics have both benefited from humanity's journey into space. And we really might just be getting started
Leroy Chiao - Scientific American
Editor's note: The following is the introduction to the February 2015 issue of Scientific American Classics: Conquering Space.
I was eight years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. As Apollo 11 touched down on that gray, cratered surface, I was already dreaming of following those astronauts into space. The moon missions made me—and millions of others around the world—feel as though we could do anything, go anywhere.
Lockheed Martin Pressing To Simplify Orion Heat Shield
Dan Leone – Space News
Lockheed Martin Space Systems will spend March 4 debriefing NASA on the first test flight of the Orion deep-space crew capsule, with an eye toward selling the agency on a redesign of the craft's all-important heat shield, a senior company official said here Feb. 18.
Buzz Aldrin to Headline First Senate Commerce Committee Space Hearing of 2015
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will hold his first space-related hearing next week as chairman of the Space, Science and Competitiveness Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Among the six witnesses is Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin along with another Apollo veteran, Walt Cunningham, and space shuttle astronaut Mike Massimino.
Moon Water Ingredient More Plentiful on Slopes Facing Lunar South Pole
Future moon colonists seeking water should focus on crater slopes that face the moon's south pole rather than those that face the equator, according to new data.
Poll Reveals Public Skepticism of Government and Private Human Spaceflight
Jeff Foust – Space News
The American public is skeptical that private ventures will be able to launch "ordinary people" into space in the coming decades, and is split about spending money on government-led human space exploration, a new poll indicates.
Our Dwarf Planet Dreams are Coming into Focus: Photos
The term "dwarf planet" wasn't defined until the infamous International Astronomical Union (IAU) vote in 2006, but this year, 9 years later, we are beginning to get our first ever close-up views of two of our solar system's most famous dwarf planets: Pluto and Ceres.
Monster Black Hole's Mighty Belch Could Transform Entire Galaxy
A ravenous, giant black hole has belched up a bubble of cosmic wind so powerful that it could change the fate of an entire galaxy, according to new observations.
New Mexico Senate Panel Passes on Spaceport Sale Bill
Susan Montoya - Associated Press
New Mexico lawmakers on Thursday debated the merits of Spaceport America and whether its futuristic hangar, its nearly 2-mile-long runway and the 18,000 acres that surround it will offer a return on taxpayers' nearly quarter-billion-dollar investment.
COMPLETE STORIES
Spacewalks kick off major station modifications
William Harwood – CBS News
NASA space station managers decided Thursday to delay the first two of three planned spacewalks by one day to give flight controllers and engineers a chance to catch their collective breath after exhaustive troubleshooting to verify the health of critical internal spacesuit components.
Expedition 42 commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Terry Virts plan to install more than 760 feet of power and data cables needed for new docking mechanisms that will be used by commercial crew ferry ships being built by Boeing and SpaceX. They also plan to install and hook up two sets of antennas, part of a new communications system that will be used by crews approaching and departing the lab complex.
The first spacewalk, originally planned for Friday, will slip to Saturday, starting around 7:10 a.m. EST (GMT-5) and the second outing will move one day to Wednesday. The third EVA remains on track for March 1 as originally planned pending additional review.
The decision to press ahead, albeit with a slight delay, was made after engineers concluded the suits that will be worn by Wilmore and Virts were healthy and not likely to suffer failures due to corrosion like that found in two spacesuit fan/pump/separator assemblies that were returned to Earth for analysis.
The modules in question circulate oxygen and cooling water throughout the spacesuit using a common motor and drive shaft. Each suit also is equipped with an emergency backup system.
After extensive troubleshooting, engineers concluded the drive shaft bearing corrosion seen in the fan assemblies shipped back to Earth likely was the result of additional testing implemented after water backed up into the helmet of spacewalker Luca Parmitano in 2013.
While some bearing corrosion is believed to be present in the fan/pump/separator in Virts' spacesuit, analysis indicates it is well below the threshold that could cause the unit to fail during use. And even if it did, officials said, the astronaut would have more than enough time to get back to the station's airlock using the suit's backup system.
As a result, mission managers cleared the astronauts to proceed after a one-day delay.
"We're not in a big hurry out get out the door on these," said a NASA spokesman. "Twenty four hours will just kind of make life easier."
During Saturday's EVA, Wilmore and Virts plan to begin installation of six long cables with multiple connectors near the front of the station to support the new Boeing-built docking adapters. The cable connections will be continued during their second spacewalk next week, along with work to lubricate grapple fittings on the lab's robot arm.
During their third excursion, the astronauts will install the new Common Communications for Visiting Vehicles, or C2V2, antennas and cabling on both sides of the station's main power truss.
Over the next year or so, at least four additional spacewalks will be needed to complete the most extensive space station reconfiguration since the shuttle fleet was retired in 2011, work requiring nearly 900 hours of crew time.
Along with the near-term work to install cabling and communications gear, future station crews will robotically attach the new docking adapters, tentatively scheduled for launch aboard SpaceX Dragon cargo ships in June and December respectively.
In addition, the station's robot arm will be used to move a storage compartment known as the Permanent Multipurpose Module, or PMM, from the Earth-facing port of the central Unity module to the forward port of the nearby Tranquility compartment. That will free up Unity's port for use by unpiloted cargo ships. The PMM move is targeted for the June timeframe.
A docking port extension known as Pressurized Mating Adapter No. 3 then will be moved from Tranquility's outboard port to the upper port of the Harmony module where the second of the new docking adapters will be mounted. That move is planned for October.
During that same timeframe, another SpaceX cargo ship is expected to deliver an inflatable module built by Bigelow Aerospace that will be attached to Tranquility's aft-facing port. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will remain in place for two years as a technology demonstration project.
All in all, some 880 hours of crew time will be needed to prepare for and carry out the seven planned spacewalks, to install internal wiring and for the robot arm operations to install the docking adapters and relocate the PMM and PMA-3.
When the work is completed, two ports will be available for dockings by either Boeing or SpaceX crew capsules starting in 2017: one on the front of the Harmony module, the same port once used by visiting space shuttles, and the second on the top side of Harmony.
Unpiloted cargo ships will be able to berth at a port on the Earth-facing side of Harmony -- the same port currently used by cargo craft -- as well as the port on the Earth-facing side of the Unity module where the PMM was originally attached.
Flights by Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft and SpaceX's crewed Dragon capsule are not expected before late 2017. But space station Program Manager Mike Suffredini said he wants to get NASA's part of the work done as soon as possible as a hedge against possible problems down the road.
"Getting it all done by the end of 2015 means if I run into anything where, God forbid, I have to make a mod to the docking system or maybe change them out or anything like that, I have time to work through that," he said in a recent interview.
"Plus, the software issues that may come up with the new integrated comm system, all that. I think in the process of putting it together and really thinking through the systems engineering aspects of it as we're doing now, we're probably likely to find one or two areas that we need to kind of strengthen."
The decision to press ahead with the first three spacewalks was made after mission managers reviewed troubleshooting to figure out what caused problems with two fan/pump/separators during testing in orbit.
The fan/pump/separator is used to circulate oxygen and cooling water through the spacesuit and it must be operating normally before astronauts can be cleared to exit the station's airlock. A failure during a spacewalk would not be life threatening, but it would force the crew member to quickly return to the station's airlock.
During routine maintenance aboard the space station last December, the fan/pump/separator in one spacesuit failed to spin up. A second unit being tested in January also failed to start. Both were returned to Earth last week aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship for detailed analysis.
When the pump modules were inspected, engineers found corrosion in one of two sets of driveshaft bearings, presumably caused by repeated exposure to water during tests to make sure no contaminants could clog a critical filter. That's what engineers believe allowed water to back up into Parmitano's space helmet during a 2013 EVA.
The additional water chemistry testing apparently subjected the fan/pump/separator bearings to extended periods of moisture, creating the corrosion that eventually prevented the shaft from spinning up normally.
Wilmore's suit, serial number 3003, is the newest spacesuit on the station and its fan/pump/separator is original equipment with no signs of any problems. Virts' suit, 3013, also checked out, but slight changes in current to its fan/pump/separator indicate a small amount of corrosion may be present.
Kenny Todd, space station operations and integration manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said engineers do not believe the fan in Virts' suit will fail once it has spun up to normal operating speeds. And even if it did, the astronaut would not be in any danger.
"If you encounter that scenario (during an EVA), there's a totally separate backup system in the suit that provides plenty of capability for the crew to return and ingress the airlockk," he said. "So from that standpoint, this is not a risk to crew, if you will, in terms of loss of life."
But given the time required to prepare for a spacewalk, "we want to make sure we've got suits that'll run for the entire EVA."
Todd emphasized the current problem had nothing to do with the contamination issue that caused water to back up into Parmitano's helmet with potentially catastrophic results.
"With the water in the helmet, that was a totally different root cause issue," Todd said. "That was an issue with port holes getting clogged up in the water separator that was due to the water chemistry issue we talked about earlier. Through that clogging, water was allowed to get into the vent flow that goes up into the helmet.
"That is not an issue here. What we're talking about is a failure of the pump to start up. That in and of itself is not a water-type of event where you could get water into the helmet."
To prevent the corrosion problem from occurring in the future, Todd said engineers are developing alternative procedures to improve water removal and suit drying after water chemistry testing.
Upgraded Antares Rocket To Fly to ISS in March 2016
OrbitalATK President and CEO David Thompson said today that the company plans the first flight of its upgraded Antares rocket on March 1, 2016 from Wallops Flight Facility, VA. An Antares exploded at liftoff in October 2014 destroying a Cygnus capsule loaded with supplies for the International Space Station (ISS). The upgraded Antares will use a different rocket engine.
Thompson and two other top officials of the new company held an investors teleconference this morning. The merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) closed on February 9. Thompson and CFO Garrett Pierce are from the Orbital side of the merger; COO Blake Larson is from ATK.
Data presented by the trio this morning show that 56 percent of the company's revenue is from national security programs, 26 percent from commercial programs, and 18 percent from NASA and other civil government programs. NASA programs were numbers two and three of the five top revenue producers last year: NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract to take cargo to the ISS (approximately $300 million) and the propulsion system for the Space Launch System (about $250 million). In first place was small caliber ammunition for the Army ($430 million). Fourth was medium and large caliber ammunition for the Army ($225 million) and fifth place was a tie between missile defense interceptors and tactical missiles, both at $150 million.
Public attention is focused on the merged company's recovery from the Antares failure. Thompson was confident that OrbitalATK will be able to fulfill its contract with NASA to deliver 20 tons of cargo to the ISS by the end of 2016. Between now and the first launch of the upgraded Antares, OrbitalATK will launch one of its Cygnus spacecraft on a competitor's rocket -- United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5. Thompson said that launch will be ready for flight in early October, but NASA may want to wait until later that month or November, depending on other ISS activities. That will be followed by the March 1 launch of the upgraded Antares and two more later in the year. The Cygnus itself is an upgraded model as well that can carry more cargo than the earlier version, allowing OrbitalATK to meet the tonnage requirements with only four more launches instead of five.
Thompson said that NASA is not asking the company to fly a demonstration launch of the upgraded rocket -- the March 1 launch will have a full cargo load. However, in January the company will conduct a test firing of the first stage on the launch pad at Wallops.
The first stage is built in Ukraine by Yuzhmash and Thompson was asked if he had any concerns considering the situation there. Thompson replied that he needs five more Antares first stages over the next two-and-a-half years and three are complete and the other two are "almost" complete. "We're watching closely with nearly full time presence" at Yuzhmash and "we do have a fallback plan if things really deteriorate there." No details were provided during the teleconference and the company has not yet responded to a query from SpacePolicyOnline.com about what that plan is. The engines used for the original version of Antares were old Russian NK-33 engines manufactured more than four decades ago and refurbished here by Aerojet Rocketdyne and redesignated AJ26. Thompson said shortly after the October 28 launch failure that early indications were that the engines were the cause of the failure 15 seconds after launch.
The replacement engines also are Russian, but newer RD-181s built by NPO Energomash, a subsidiary of Energia. In a January 16, 2015 press release, Energia's President Vladimir Solntsev said the two companies had been working on the contract for three years. According to that press release, the contract value is $1 billion for 60 engines (plus engineering services), but apparently that is a firm contract for 20 engines plus two options for 20 more engines each. The first two engines are due to be delivered in June 2015. The RD-181 was "developed specifically" for Antares, according to the Energia press release, based on the RD-191 engine built for Russia's new Angara rocket family. Orbital/OrbitalATK itself has released very little information about the contract.
Astronauts Repair Space Station Satellite Deployer
Jeff Foust – Space News
Astronauts on the International Space Station have made repairs to a set of small satellite deployers that malfunctioned several months ago, a move that the company that provided them calls a milestone for commercial activities there.
The deployer system, used to eject cubesat-sized spacecraft from the ISS, broke down in August, failing to release satellites when commanded. During the troubleshooting process in September, two satellites were inadvertently released. The deployers were returned inside the ISS through the airlock in the Japanese Kibo module in mid-September.
While NanoRacks, the Houston-based company that provided the deployers, has built new deployers to correct the problem, it worked with NASA and other ISS partners to also attempt to repair the deployers currently on the station. "After several months of hard work, we made adjustments to the deployers," said Jeffrey Manber, managing director of NanoRacks, in an interview Feb. 17.
The problems with the deployers were traced to screws that were not tightened correctly, he said, as well as issues with a power feed. "It was a couple of different things, and we think we've corrected it," he said.
The repair work, Manber said, included installation of a new electronics system for the deployer and latches to prevent the premature deployment of the satellites. A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft delivered the repair hardware to the ISS in January. The station's crew made the repairs and successfully tested the latches on Feb. 17, and planned to attempt satellite deployments the week of Feb. 23.
Those repair plans took several months of coordination with NASA, Roscosmos, the Japanese space agency JAXA, and the Aerospace Corp., who NanoRacks had brought in to support the investigation of the deployer problem. "We had to go through a review process" with those space agencies, he said. "There was some questioning about whether we should attempt this on-orbit repair, but NASA has been very supportive."
Manber said the company went through the time and effort of the repair process, instead of waiting to ship new deployers to the station, to demonstrate that the ISS is a "robust" platform for commercialization. "We could have brought the payloads down and thrown them away," he said. "This is to try and fix something that didn't work, with the same satellites on it."
He cautioned that there's no guarantee that the repairs will fix the problems with the deployers, but that the addition of the latches, specifically requested by JAXA, should eliminate any risk to the station from an accidental deployment of satellites. "These are the deployers that did not work last time, so they may not work this time," he said. "We think we've fixed it, but we know we've made it safe."
In addition to the repaired deployers on the station and new ones of a similar design slated to go to the station later this year, NanoRacks has been developing a new small satellite deployment system called Kaber. That system will be able to support launching both cubesat-class spacecraft as well as larger microsatellites weighing up to 50 kilograms.
The hardware for Kaber is being built now, NanoRacks external payloads manager Kirk Woellert said at an ISS utilization workshop the company held here Feb. 17. Kaber will be delivered to the ISS this summer on the seventh SpaceX Dragon cargo mission, with the first microsatellite deployments using it expected by the end of the year.
Even if the repaired deployers don't work, Manber said that the effort that went into attempting the repair was worthwhile. "It involved astronauts, multiple agencies, NanoRacks, everybody working together," he said. "It's a major step forward, using the space station for commercial on-orbit repair."
Space to Grow
Science and politics have both benefited from humanity's journey into space. And we really might just be getting started
Leroy Chiao - Scientific American
Editor's note: The following is the introduction to the February 2015 issue of Scientific American Classics: Conquering Space.
I was eight years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. As Apollo 11 touched down on that gray, cratered surface, I was already dreaming of following those astronauts into space. The moon missions made me—and millions of others around the world—feel as though we could do anything, go anywhere.
Twenty-five years after that first moon landing, I was flying onboard the space shuttle Columbia on a 15-day mission during which we conducted some 80 experiments in microgravity.
Space travel was unlike anything I could have imagined when I was a boy. It remained fantastic even after two more shuttle flights, a Soyuz flight and six months on the International Space Station (ISS).
I remember taking a space walk on the ISS. There I was, wrench in hand, tightening bolts on a new module. It was such a mundane task. But when I looked in one direction, there was Earth floating in vivid blues and greens. In the other direction, I could see the blackest black conceivable, punctured by unwavering pinpoints of starshine. It was intense and surreal.
You might have heard about a transformation that can occur when someone first sees Earth from space—how it becomes harder to think about "my country" or "my people" and harder not to think about "our planet."
I can tell you, that transformation is real.
I came home with a different sense of our world. And I would wager that every single one of the 500-plus men and women who have traveled into space came home transformed as well. It is one of the reasons why I continue to believe that we need to keep sending humans into space as well as robots. The results are tangible: I have seen firsthand how projects such as the ISS can foster cooperation among countries and cultures that otherwise might find it easier to be enemies.
In fact, while working with Russian colleagues, I learned that even at the height of the cold war, people in the Soviet Union were as excited as Americans when men first walked on the moon. Despite the political motivations behind the space race, the realization of the dream actually transcended politics.
Humans have not been back to the moon since 1972. With our retreat to low-Earth orbit, I sometimes feel as though we have lost some of the globally galvanizing magic of traveling to space. But I think it is possible—and important—to recapture it. My conviction is not simply about space exploration as a foreign policy tool. It is also about doing valuable science.
It took a lot of science to get people into space—this issue is testament to that. But science does not just drive space travel—space travel also drives science.
I worked on biomedical experiments while on the ISS that are already changing medical scanning and diagnosis back here on Earth. We did ultrasound scans in space, beaming the data back to Earth where specialists could analyze them remotely. Remote diagnosis is handy for astronauts and for the billions of people who live in rural areas, far from the nearest medical expert.
The low-gravity, low-temperature environment helps us unlock new information about phenomena such as superconductivity. We can grow crystals, mix fluids and create alloys that would be impossible on Earth. And of course, we are increasing our understanding of the long-term effects of space travel on the human body.
That is just on a space station. Who knows what we might find by returning to the moon, pushing on to Mars and even beyond?
I am also excited by the emergence of commercial space travel. Even with setbacks such as the recent fatal crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, it seems inevitable that tourists and private citizens will join government and military personnel in the journey to space.
Each new advance brings us closer to the day when the rare experience I have been lucky enough to enjoy becomes widely available. And I firmly believe that when thousands or even millions of human beings begin rocketing out of the atmosphere, space will continue to work its transformative magic. And what could be better for the future of the human race than to have a critical mass of people who see the entire planet as a unified home for all of humanity?
Lockheed Martin Pressing To Simplify Orion Heat Shield
Dan Leone – Space News
Lockheed Martin Space Systems will spend March 4 debriefing NASA on the first test flight of the Orion deep-space crew capsule, with an eye toward selling the agency on a redesign of the craft's all-important heat shield, a senior company official said here Feb. 18.
Mike Hawes, director of human spaceflight programs at Denver-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems, said data from the four-and-a-half hour Exploration Flight Test (EFT)-1, carried out Dec. 5, indicates that a lower-cost heat shield design could provide the necessary protection for Orion crews.
In the EFT-1 mission, an uncrewed Orion launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, reached a peak altitude of 5,800 kilometers during two Earth orbits, and re-entered the atmosphere at about 80 percent of the speed it would achieve during a return from lunar space. Orion will venture to lunar space in 2018 in another uncrewed test flight, and repeat the mission with a crew in 2021.
Temperatures on re-entry "were lower than we expected" on EFT-1, Hawes told reporters here during Lockheed Martin's annual media day.
That data supports a Lockheed Martin proposal to scrap the current heat-shield design, which features a 5-meter-diameter honeycombed frame, in favor of an alternative composed of rectangular heat-resistant tiles glued together with a silicone-based adhesive, Hawes said.
Such a change, Hawes said, could shave hours — and therefore dollars — off the heat shield manufacturing process currently employed by subcontractor Textron, which is based in Boston.
"That's one of our bigger concerns with the heat shield, just the long-term manufacturing. [We want] something that would be less touch-intensive," said Hawes, who joined Lockheed in 2011 after a 30-year NASA career.
The current process requires Textron technicians to inject insulating material into thumbnail-wide holes in the honeycombed frame using a caulking gun, Hawes said. The shield must then be cured in an oven and sanded down, an arduous and time-consuming process.
Replacing the honeycomb structure with plates that can be glued together with a silicone sealant that bonds at room temperature would be easier, cheaper and no less safe, Hawes said. Lockheed Martin's Orion contract, signed in 2006, is now worth about $12 billion. The deal covers only the first three capsules, only the last of which would carry a crew.
Hawes said Lockheed has already sent NASA a 600-megabyte preliminary report on EFT-1, which by all accounts was a success.
One of the few blemishes on the flight was the failure of two of Orion's five so-called uprighting bags to fully inflate after the capsule splashed down some 1,015 kilometers southwest of San Diego. The bags are designed to prevent Orion from tipping top-down in the ocean.
One of the balky bags did not inflate at all; the other partially inflated. Preliminary data indicates that the bags themselves, and not the plumbing that pumps them full of gas, were to blame, Hawes said. Whether the bags were punctured somehow during flight, or their material is defective, Lockheed still is not sure.
Orion's electronics, meanwhile, appear to have survived their trips through Earth's high-radiation Van Allen belts during EFT-1, Hawes said. Orion is likely to pass through the Van Allen belts on its way to and from deep-space destinations.
There was a momentary electrical hiccup, Hawes acknowledged, but it does not appear to be tied to trans-Van Allen passage.
"We did see some restarts of the video processing units [aboard Orion], but right now the data doesn't look like it was driven by the Van Allen belts," said Hawes. "We can see that the avionics data tells us that we have passed through the high-radiation source, but it looks like the behavior was actually very crisp going through that."
Buzz Aldrin to Headline First Senate Commerce Committee Space Hearing of 2015
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will hold his first space-related hearing next week as chairman of the Space, Science and Competitiveness Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Among the six witnesses is Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin along with another Apollo veteran, Walt Cunningham, and space shuttle astronaut Mike Massimino.
The hearing is entitled "U.S. Human Exploration Goals and Commercial Space Competitiveness." In addition to the panel of former astronauts, a second panel includes representatives of industry and academia: John Elbon, Vice President and General Manager, Boeing Space Exploration; Scott Pace, Director, Space Policy Institute at George Washington University; and Eric Stallmer, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation.
In an interview with the Houston Chronicle's Eric Berger last month that Cruz posted on his office website, he said that he is "an enthusiastic advocate of competition and allowing the private sector to innovate." He also signaled support for Orion and the Space Launch System and said he wants to refocus NASA on its "core priority of exploring space."
Cruz is an ardent advocate of cutting federal spending and is widely credited (or blamed) for the 16-day government shutdown in 2013 and delaying Senate adjournment in December 2014 due to his strong views on budgetary and other issues. What that will mean for NASA is anyone's guess this early in deliberations.
Democrats recently announced that Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) will be the ranking member of this subcommittee. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who chaired the subcommittee in the last Congress when the Senate was under Democratic control, is now the ranking member of the full committee. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) chairs the full committee.
This is the committee that will consider the President's nomination of MIT Professor Dava Newman to be NASA Deputy Administrator. No date has been announced for a confirmation hearing. Under usual procedures, it is also the committee that would consider a new NASA authorization bill, although the House has already passed such a bill and it could go directly to the Senate floor for debate if desired. The Senate never took up the House-passed NASA authorization bill last year. This year's House bill is virtually identical to last year's although it contains funding recommendations based on FY2015 rather than FY2014 appropriations levels. It does not make recommendations for future year funding.
The hearing is on Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 2:00 pm ET in 253 Russell Senate Office Building. Moon Water Ingredient More Plentiful on Slopes Facing Lunar South Pole
Future moon colonists seeking water should focus on crater slopes that face the moon's south pole rather than those that face the equator, according to new data.
That conclusion comes after NASA's long-running Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) discovered there is very slightly more hydrogen — 23 parts per million by weight, on average — in "polar-facing slopes." Hydrogen could be a sign of lunar water since it, along with oxygen, form to make water. If this hypothesis is confirmed and there is enough water available, future colonists could mine the liquid rather than transporting it from Earth. "Here in the Northern Hemisphere, if you go outside on a sunny day after a snowfall, you'll notice that there's more snow on north-facing slopes because they lose water at slower rates than the more sunlit south-facing slopes," lead author of the water study Timothy McClanahan said. "We think a similar phenomenon is happening with the volatiles on the moon." [Photos: The Search for Water on the Moon] It's unclear how much hydrogen is available. Most polar-facing slopes are below the resolution of LRO's Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) instrument that did the measurements. It is possible that hydrogen exists in areas that can't yet be spotted, but the water abundance found so far is tiny. "The amounts we are detecting are still drier than the driest desert on Earth," McClanahan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland added.
Researchers also aren't sure if the hydrogen is a signal of water (two hydrogen atoms bound to an oxygen atom) or hydroxyl, which is made up of an oxygen and hydrogen molecule.
The hydrogen itself likely came from several different sources. Comets and asteroids could have spread water while impacting the lunar surface. Hydrogen is also abundant in the solar wind, a constant stream of particles from the sun that sometimes impact the moon. When the hydrogen hits the surface, it could mix with oxygen found in the silicate rocks there to create hydroxyl or water.
Before LRO arrived at the moon, researchers hypothesized that hydrogen could only survive in permanently shadowed craters protected from the sun's heat. Subsequent observations by the spacecraft have shown hydrogen is far more widespread.
LEND counts neutrons bouncing back from the moon's surface after impacts by cosmic rays (high-speed particles believed to come from distant supernovas). The instrument detected fewer bounce-backs in polar-facing slopes. That would be expected if hydrogen was there, because it is the most efficient element at stopping neutrons flying at medium speeds.
The team combined LEND observations with other data from LRO to come up with the hydrogen hypothesis, including topography and temperature maps. This allowed scientists to map the hydrogen abundance against the conditions on the surface.
Results based on the research were published in the journal Icarus. The team is also analyzing craters in the moon's northern hemisphere to see if a similar trend takes place there.
Poll Reveals Public Skepticism of Government and Private Human Spaceflight
Jeff Foust – Space News
The American public is skeptical that private ventures will be able to launch "ordinary people" into space in the coming decades, and is split about spending money on government-led human space exploration, a new poll indicates.
The Monmouth University Poll results, released Feb. 16, showed that a majority of Americans believe private companies should be permitted to launch people into space, but also that they did not believe it likely those companies would be able to do so in next 20 to 30 years.
In the poll, 58 percent of people said private companies should be allowed to launch people in space, versus 37 percent who said that human spaceflight should be left to governments alone. However, 55 percent thought it was not likely that "ordinary people will be able to travel regularly" into space in the next 20 to 30 years, while 44 percent said such travel would be somewhat or very likely.
Most people also said they were unwilling to fly in space themselves: 69 percent said they would decline a free trip into space, while 28 percent said they would accept it. The poll did not specify what kind of trip — suborbital or orbital — was offered.
The poll revealed a sharp difference in gender, with men more willing than women to believe private ventures should be allowed to fly people in space. Men supported private over government-only human spaceflight by a margin of 71 to 26 percent. Women, though were, more evenly split, with 44 percent backing private human spaceflight and 49 percent supporting government-only efforts.
The public is also divided about spending money on government human space exploration. Asked if the U.S. government should spend "billions of dollars to send astronauts to places like the moon, Mars, and asteroids," 50 percent said no, while 42 percent said yes.
As with private spaceflight, there was a strong gender split, with 50 percent of men, but only 36 percent of women, supporting spending on human space exploration. There was, by contrast, little difference by party affiliation.
The poll showed greater support for government spending on space in general. Asked if increased spending on the space program in general would be "a good investment for the country," 51 percent agreed and 43 percent disagreed.
The poll is based on a telephone survey of 1,008 people in December, and has an overall margin of error of 3.1 percent.
Our Dwarf Planet Dreams are Coming into Focus: Photos
The term "dwarf planet" wasn't defined until the infamous International Astronomical Union (IAU) vote in 2006, but this year, 9 years later, we are beginning to get our first ever close-up views of two of our solar system's most famous dwarf planets: Pluto and Ceres.
Currently spiraling in on Ceres, the innermost dwarf planet inhabiting the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is slowly revealing a cratered and complex world, details of which that have so far eluded even Hubble's powerful vision. Dawn is scheduled to make final orbital insertion around Ceres in March 2015 where it is destined to remain after its fuel runs out as a permanent human-made satellite of Ceres. A comparison image of the Hubble and Dawn views of Ceres is shown above.
But Dawn is just the first dwarf planet encounter of 2015. In July, NASA's New Horizons mission will flyby Pluto and its system of moons, exploring the mysterious Kuiper Belt.
Between Hubble's blurry observations of Ceres and Pluto and this year's NASA encounters, many artists' impressions of these enigmatic worlds have guessed at what lies in store for our robotic explorers. But how do they measure up now we are beginning to see Ceres' and Pluto's surfaces?
Monster Black Hole's Mighty Belch Could Transform Entire Galaxy
A ravenous, giant black hole has belched up a bubble of cosmic wind so powerful that it could change the fate of an entire galaxy, according to new observations.
Researchers using two X-ray telescopes have identified a cosmic wind blowing outward from the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy PDS 456. Astronomers have seen these winds before, but the authors of the new research say this is the first observation of a wind moving away from the center in every direction, creating a spherical shape.
The wind could have big implications for the future of the galaxy: It will cut down on the black hole's food supply, and slow star formation in the rest of the galaxy, the researchers said. And it's possible that strong cosmic winds are a common part of galaxy evolution — they could be responsible for turning galaxies from bright, active youngsters to quiet middle-agers. [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]
Big eater
The supermassive black hole at the center of PDS 456 is currently gobbling up a substantial amount of food: A smorgasbord of gas and dust surrounds the black hole and is falling into the gravitational sinkhole.
As matter falls, it radiates light. The black hole at the center of PDS 456 is devouring so much matter, that the resulting radiation outshines every star in the galaxy. These kinds of bright young galaxies are known as quasars: a galaxy with an incredibly bright center, powered by a supermassive black hole with a big appetite.
New observations of PDS 456 have revealed a bubble of gas moving outward, away from the black hole. Using NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and ESA's (European Space Agency) XMM-Newton, the authors of the new research imaged the galaxy on five separate occassions in 2013 and 2014. The researchers say they can show that the photons of light emitted by the in-falling matter are pushing on nearby gas, creating the wind.
Scientists have studied these cosmic winds before, but the authors of the new research say their work goes a step further.
"It tells us that the shape of the wind is not just a narrow beam pointed in our direction. It is really a wind that is flowing in every direction away from the black hole," said Emanuele Nardini, a postdoctoral researcher at Keele University in Staffordshire, England. "With a spherical wind, the amount of mass it carries out is much larger than just a narrow beam."
According to a statement from NASA, galaxy PDS 456 "sustains winds that carry more energy every second than is emitted by more than a trillion suns." Such powerful winds could change the entire landscape of PDS 456, the researchers say. First, the wind will blow through the disk of matter surrounding the black hole — this disk currently serves as the black hole's food supply. The cosmic wind created by the black hole's appetite could significantly reduce or destroy the disk. In other words, the black hole cannot have its cake and eat it, too. [Images: Black Holes of the Universe]
Bright young things
With no matter left to fall into the black hole, the radiation would cease as well. The brilliant center of the quasar will dim. By diminishing the black hole's food supply, they may turn quasars and other "active galaxies" like PDS 456 into quiescent galaxies like the Milky Way. Theorists have proposed that cosmic winds could explain why there are more young active galaxies than old active galaxies.
"We know that in almost every galaxy, a supermassive black hole resides in the center," said Nardini. "But, most of the galaxies we see today are quiescent, they are not active in any way. The fact that galaxies today are quiescent — we have to find an explanation for that in something that happened a long time ago."
In addition to quenching the radiation from an active black hole, these cosmic winds may slow down star formation in galaxies. The cosmic wind could blow through regions thick with gas and dust, where young stars form, and thin out the fertile stellar soil.
"If you have a black hole with this kind of wind, in millions of years [the winds] will be able to quench star formation and create a galaxy like our own," Nardini said. Stars will still form in the Milky Way, but not at the high rate of many young galaxies.
It's possible that these cosmic winds are a central reason why most galaxies go from being brightly burning active youngsters to quiet middle-agers.
New Mexico Senate Panel Passes on Spaceport Sale Bill
Susan Montoya - Associated Press
New Mexico lawmakers on Thursday debated the merits of Spaceport America and whether its futuristic hangar, its nearly 2-mile-long runway and the 18,000 acres that surround it will offer a return on taxpayers' nearly quarter-billion-dollar investment.
Sen. George Munoz, D-Gallup, said lawmakers have a responsibility to ask the question, and that's why he introduced a measure that calls for selling the spaceport.
"As a senator, we represent the entire state, and we don't want to hurt one portion or another, but we have to watch our tax dollars," he told members of the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee.
The committee voted Thursday to advance Munoz's bill without a recommendation. Some lawmakers said they want the discussion to continue because they still have questions about the $220 million endeavor.
The bill adds fuel to criticisms that Spaceport America — first initiated by former Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, and British billionaire Richard Branson — is a boondoggle.
Promises of commercial flights launching from the spaceport have been pushed back year after year. It happened again in 2014, when anchor tenant Virgin Galactic had its spaceship break up over the California desert during a test flight. One pilot was killed, another was seriously injured and the program was set back at least another year.
"I'm beginning to fear that the spaceport is a white elephant that was given to us by a former governor and an international billionaire and if we're not careful, all our hay is going to be eaten," said Sen. Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque.
Supporters, including business owners in the aerospace and tourism industries, argued that developing a spaceport from scratch doesn't happen overnight and that New Mexico has a chance to be on the front end of the burgeoning commercial space industry.
Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, said he worried about pulling the plug now and the effect that would have on efforts to boost New Mexico's economy.
"When Microsoft was trying to get off the ground, we practically laughed them out of this state and all of those 50,000 or 100,000 jobs went right along with them," he said. "We didn't take them seriously, and we didn't make the thing happen and we ended up not having that type of an investment here in New Mexico."
According to a Microsoft account, founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen were having trouble wooing people to New Mexico so they decided to move to the Pacific Northwest in 1978. Gates had said there were no real ties to Albuquerque except for the good weather and the difficulties associated with moving people there.
New Mexico Spaceport Authority executive director Christine Anderson was disappointed that the legislation made it out of the committee, saying it suggests to prospective tenants in the U.S. and abroad that the state doesn't support the world's first purpose-built spaceport.
"The longer they carry this on, the more harmful this is going to be," she told The Associated Press.
Spaceport America, she said, is the only one of the nation's nine licensed facilities that has access to such a large swath of restricted airspace, something that allows tenants such as Virgin Galactic to have dependable schedules for launching paying customers into space.
Testing for a reusable rocket being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX is expected to begin this spring.
Anderson argued that the spaceport has created about 1,400 jobs and half of its 35 full-time employees are now funded by revenues from lease and user fees. She said that shows it's on the right track.
Anderson said another concern is that selling Spaceport America could result in costly litigation with tenants.
The legislation would have to clear at least two additional Senate committees before reaching the floor for a vote.
END
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Hubble Space Telescope Celebrates 25th Anniversary
- Expedition Posters Available on SFA Website
- Houston Fire Department Exercise On-site Saturday - Organizations/Social
- March Women's History Month - Nomination Callout
- Tour and Talk on Orion Mission Ops w/ EFT-1 MC
- ShopNASA Buildings 3 & 11 Shop Hours: Feb. 23-27 |  |
| Headlines - Hubble Space Telescope Celebrates 25th Anniversary
In 1990, the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV, "Driving Miss Daisy" won an Academy Award for Best Picture and the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. Help celebrate 25 years of Hubble discoveries in 2015! There are several important Hubble dates to remember during this anniversary year. The first is April 24, marking the 25th anniversary of Hubble's launch on STS-31. Additional dates of importance include Hubble servicing missions: Feb. 11 to 21, 1997 (STS-82); March 1 to 12, 2002 (STS-109); May 11 to 24, 2009 (STS-125); Dec. 2 to 13, 1993 (STS-61); and Dec. 19 to 27, 1999 (STS-103). Hubble's achievements will be highlighted during the year at the Hubble's 25th anniversary website. Celebrate with us using #hubble25 and visit the website often for announcements and up-to-date information on Hubble milestones and events related to our celebrations! - Expedition Posters Available on SFA Website
- Houston Fire Department Exercise On-site Saturday
Be aware that the Houston Fire Department will be conducting a joint exercise at Building 45 on Saturday, Feb. 21. Organizations/Social - March Women's History Month – Nomination Callout
The 2015 Women's History Month's theme is "Weaving the Stories of Women's Lives." The theme presents the opportunity to weave women's stories—individually and collectively—into the essential fabric of our nation's history and space program. We would like to highlight one or two female employees whose achievements, challenges, character and commitment have helped shaped them into the people they are today, and whose stories serves as an inspiration to others. Please submit your nomination, or self-nomination, for consideration to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity via email by Wednesday, Feb. 25. Please include the nominee's name, organization, job title, and why you nominate the individual or yourself in 300 words or less. If selected, the stories will be highlighted on JSC Features. - Tour and Talk on Orion Mission Ops w/ EFT-1 MC
Tour and Talk on Orion Mission Ops (focusing on Exploration Flight Test-1 [EFT-1] Flight Ops related to Human Systems Integration (HSI) The event will include a tour of the Orion EFT-1 mission control room. The discussion will include topics like: overview of the EFT-1 ops team roles and operational procedures; comparison to other flight ops experiences; flight ops training overview; and HSI-related lessons learned. - ShopNASA Buildings 3 & 11 Shop Hours: Feb. 23-27
The ShopNASA Gift Shops will be open with modified hours next week. Building 3: - Monday, Feb. 23 - 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Tuesday, Feb. 24 - 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Wednesday, Feb. 25 - 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Thursday, Feb. 26 - 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Friday, Feb. 27 - 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Building 11: - Monday, Feb. 23 - 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Tuesday, Feb. 24 - CLOSED
- Wednesday, Feb. 25 - 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Thursday, Feb. 26 - 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Friday, Feb. 27 - CLOSED for Flex Friday
Please remember that Space Center Houston, AMC movie and Cinemark movie tickets, as well as rodeo carnival packs, can all be purchased at the Gilruth front desk. The Gilruth front desk is open Monday through Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. | |
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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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