The Washinghton Post: Turkmenistan sets up national space agency
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — The energy-rich Turkmenistan is aiming to join the ranks of space nations.
The official newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan reported Tuesday that President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has signed a decree authorizing the creation of the National Space Agency.
Earlier this month, U.S. space transportation company SpaceX vice president Christophe Bauer announced that his company would launch a satellite for the Central Asian nation in 2014.
The country’s last brush with space came in 2005, when the Turkmens secured a slot on a Russian rocket to send a capsule containing then-President Saparmurat Niyazov’s self-penned holy text into orbit. The eccentric leader died in 2006 after two decades of iron-fisted rule.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Endeavour Crew Prepares for Wednesday Landing
eweek.com: Endeavour Crew Prepares for Wednesday Landing
Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew prepare for their return to Earth after the spacecraft's final mission skyward.
Space shuttle Endeavour’s crew is wrapping up final preparations for its planned landing on Wednesday morning at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space agency reported. The crew is preparing to stow the Ku-Band antenna, used for high-data rate communications and television from space, and will sleep before the re-entry sequence. The astronauts on Endeavour got a special wakeup call Monday to kick off a day devoted to preparing the orbiter and its crew for their return to Earth this week.
The wakeup call featured the original composition “Dreams You Give” by Brain Plunkett, the second place winner in the Space Shuttle Program’s Original Song Contest, which drew more than 1,300 entries. More than a million votes were cast online by the general public to choose two songs from among 10 finalists to be played to the astronauts; the top vote-getter will be played to wake up the crew tomorrow.
At 8:06 p.m. EDT all six crewmembers will start their day talking about the flight in a series of interviews with various major news outlets, and an hour later Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Greg Johnson and Flight Engineer Roberto Vittori will take their places on Endeavour’s flight deck and work with the entry flight control team on a routine pre-entry checkout of the shuttle’s flight control systems and reaction control system jets.
Most of the rest of the crew’s day will be spent packing items throughout the crew cabin in preparation for the planned landing at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday morning, the space agency reported. The crew also took time for a tribute to Endeavour, speaking about the history of the youngest space shuttle and the work accomplished by its crews during its 25 trips to space.
Endeavour was NASA's fifth and final space shuttle orbiter to join the fleet at Kennedy Space Center. Endeavour also is known inside the space agency by its designation Orbiter Vehicle-105, or OV-105. Construction of Endeavour began on Sept. 28, 1987, and it rolled out of the assembly plant in Palmdale, Calif., in April 1991. For the first time, a national competition involving students in elementary and secondary schools produced the name of the new orbiter.
After receiving 6,154 entries, representing more than 70,000 students, NASA chose Endeavour. The name comes from a ship chartered to traverse the South Pacific in 1768 and captained by 18th century British explorer James Cook, an experienced seaman, navigator and amateur astronomer.
Among Endeavour’s missions was the first to include four spacewalks, and then the first to include five. Its STS-67 mission set a length record of almost two full days longer than any shuttle mission before it. Its airlock is the only one to have seen three spacewalkers exit through it for a single spacewalk. And in its cargo bay, the first two pieces of the International Space Station (ISS) were joined together.
Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew prepare for their return to Earth after the spacecraft's final mission skyward.
Space shuttle Endeavour’s crew is wrapping up final preparations for its planned landing on Wednesday morning at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space agency reported. The crew is preparing to stow the Ku-Band antenna, used for high-data rate communications and television from space, and will sleep before the re-entry sequence. The astronauts on Endeavour got a special wakeup call Monday to kick off a day devoted to preparing the orbiter and its crew for their return to Earth this week.
The wakeup call featured the original composition “Dreams You Give” by Brain Plunkett, the second place winner in the Space Shuttle Program’s Original Song Contest, which drew more than 1,300 entries. More than a million votes were cast online by the general public to choose two songs from among 10 finalists to be played to the astronauts; the top vote-getter will be played to wake up the crew tomorrow.
At 8:06 p.m. EDT all six crewmembers will start their day talking about the flight in a series of interviews with various major news outlets, and an hour later Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Greg Johnson and Flight Engineer Roberto Vittori will take their places on Endeavour’s flight deck and work with the entry flight control team on a routine pre-entry checkout of the shuttle’s flight control systems and reaction control system jets.
Most of the rest of the crew’s day will be spent packing items throughout the crew cabin in preparation for the planned landing at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday morning, the space agency reported. The crew also took time for a tribute to Endeavour, speaking about the history of the youngest space shuttle and the work accomplished by its crews during its 25 trips to space.
Endeavour was NASA's fifth and final space shuttle orbiter to join the fleet at Kennedy Space Center. Endeavour also is known inside the space agency by its designation Orbiter Vehicle-105, or OV-105. Construction of Endeavour began on Sept. 28, 1987, and it rolled out of the assembly plant in Palmdale, Calif., in April 1991. For the first time, a national competition involving students in elementary and secondary schools produced the name of the new orbiter.
After receiving 6,154 entries, representing more than 70,000 students, NASA chose Endeavour. The name comes from a ship chartered to traverse the South Pacific in 1768 and captained by 18th century British explorer James Cook, an experienced seaman, navigator and amateur astronomer.
Among Endeavour’s missions was the first to include four spacewalks, and then the first to include five. Its STS-67 mission set a length record of almost two full days longer than any shuttle mission before it. Its airlock is the only one to have seen three spacewalkers exit through it for a single spacewalk. And in its cargo bay, the first two pieces of the International Space Station (ISS) were joined together.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Endeavour leaves International Space Station on final journey
The Telegraph (UK): Endeavour leaves International Space Station on final journey
The US space shuttle Endeavour is on its way back to Earth after leaving the International Space Station on its final journey before entering retirement.
Endeavour's last mission is the penultimate flight for the 30-year-old US shuttle program, which will end for good after the Atlantis mission to the orbiting research lab, scheduled to begin July 8.
It uncoupled from the space station when it was 215 miles (350km) over La Paz, Bolivia, NASA said.
It was followed by one-lap of the station to allow the six crew to take photos of the space lab.
Endeavour's 16-day mission began with the shuttle's launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 16 and will conclude when the shuttle lands back on Earth early on Wednesday.
During nearly 11 days at the space station, the crew delivered and installed the Alpha-Magnetic Spectrometer-2, which will be left at the space station to scour the universe for clues about dark matter and antimatter.
The shuttle commander is Mark Kelly, whose lawmaker wife Gabrielle Giffords is recovering from a bullet wound to the head. The Arizona congresswoman was shot by a lone gunman during a meeting with local voters in January. Six people were killed.
Miss Giffords was granted leave by her rehabilitation doctors to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Center along with other astronaut family members two weeks ago, but is not expected to return for the middle-of-the-night landing.
After the final shuttle missions, the three spacecraft in the flying fleet and the prototype Enterprise will be sent to different museums across the country.
Discovery, the oldest in the group, was the first shuttle to retire after its final journey to the ISS ended in March. Endeavour is the youngest, and flew its first space mission in 1991. It is now ending its 25th and final mission.
Endeavour is the sixth and last US space shuttle ever built, and was commissioned after the Challenger exploded in 1986.
The US space shuttle Endeavour is on its way back to Earth after leaving the International Space Station on its final journey before entering retirement.
Endeavour's last mission is the penultimate flight for the 30-year-old US shuttle program, which will end for good after the Atlantis mission to the orbiting research lab, scheduled to begin July 8.
It uncoupled from the space station when it was 215 miles (350km) over La Paz, Bolivia, NASA said.
It was followed by one-lap of the station to allow the six crew to take photos of the space lab.
Endeavour's 16-day mission began with the shuttle's launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 16 and will conclude when the shuttle lands back on Earth early on Wednesday.
During nearly 11 days at the space station, the crew delivered and installed the Alpha-Magnetic Spectrometer-2, which will be left at the space station to scour the universe for clues about dark matter and antimatter.
The shuttle commander is Mark Kelly, whose lawmaker wife Gabrielle Giffords is recovering from a bullet wound to the head. The Arizona congresswoman was shot by a lone gunman during a meeting with local voters in January. Six people were killed.
Miss Giffords was granted leave by her rehabilitation doctors to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Center along with other astronaut family members two weeks ago, but is not expected to return for the middle-of-the-night landing.
After the final shuttle missions, the three spacecraft in the flying fleet and the prototype Enterprise will be sent to different museums across the country.
Discovery, the oldest in the group, was the first shuttle to retire after its final journey to the ISS ended in March. Endeavour is the youngest, and flew its first space mission in 1991. It is now ending its 25th and final mission.
Endeavour is the sixth and last US space shuttle ever built, and was commissioned after the Challenger exploded in 1986.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Revolt of the Apollo Astronauts
SatelliteSpotlight.com: Revolt of the Apollo Astronauts
On the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's call to put men on the moon, a number of Apollo astronauts called out President Obama and NASA for botching up America's space policy. Do they have a point -- or are they just grumpy old men?
In a May 24 USA Today Op-Ed piece, the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, Apollo 13 mission commander Jim Lovell, and Apollo 17 mission commander Gene Cernan noted the 2005 Constellation program was effectively shut down in the proposed 2011 budget. Invoking the spirit of President Kennedy, Obama's advisors "ignored NASA's operational mandate" and "strayed widely" from Kennedy's vision and the will of the American people to be the leader in space exploration.
"But today, America's leadership in space is slipping," states the piece. "NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years... After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent."
The president's 2012 budget keeps funding below Congressionally authorized amounts for development of a large heavy-lift rocket and the multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV), while increasing funding for cooperative R&D of commercial rockets and spacecraft.
Armstrong and company snipe that costs for commercial services to space will be "substantially larger and more time consuming" than entrepreneurs predict, not having factored in NASA-funded development costs.
Meanwhile, Cernan's Apollo 17 lunar module pilot and former Senator Harrison Schmitt goes beyond the USA Today piece to call for the wholesale dismantling of NASA. In his blog piece, "46. Space Policy and the Constitution #4," Schmitt recognizes that budgetary actions for the last 8 years (i.e. during the former Bush administration, as well as current activity) have imposed "immense difficulties." In addition, he notes NASA's transformation from a center of national necessity during the 1970s to a source of pork barrel spending with "NASA Centers, large contractors, or concentrations of sub-contractors."
Schmitt wants to ditch NASA with the start of a new presidential term in 2013, starting from scratch to create a dedicated National Space Exploration Administration (NSEA) to enable exploration of deep space. Existing component parts of NASA would be redistributed among existing agencies with the exception of U.S. obligations on the ISS. NASA's climate and earth science research would go to NOAA; aeronautic R&D would go to the recreation of the NACA. Space sciences activities would be shifted to the National Science Foundation, excluding lunar and planetary science.
NSEA would hire a totally new workforce and have the authority to maintain an average employee age of less than 30; NASA's is over 47. A younger work force would provide the "the imagination, motivation, stamina, and courage of young engineers, scientists, and managers" to be successful in meeting the goal of not being in second place to the Chinese or other nation.
Of the two pieces, I have to say I like Schmitt's better; he recognizes that America hasn't come to this point in time overnight, calling out both Congress for pork-barrel politics and more than one administration for failing to provide leadership and funding. Finally, he proposes a solution, abet a radical one, to "fix" NASA and put the country on a more solid path for future space exploration efforts.
On the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's call to put men on the moon, a number of Apollo astronauts called out President Obama and NASA for botching up America's space policy. Do they have a point -- or are they just grumpy old men?
In a May 24 USA Today Op-Ed piece, the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, Apollo 13 mission commander Jim Lovell, and Apollo 17 mission commander Gene Cernan noted the 2005 Constellation program was effectively shut down in the proposed 2011 budget. Invoking the spirit of President Kennedy, Obama's advisors "ignored NASA's operational mandate" and "strayed widely" from Kennedy's vision and the will of the American people to be the leader in space exploration.
"But today, America's leadership in space is slipping," states the piece. "NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years... After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent."
The president's 2012 budget keeps funding below Congressionally authorized amounts for development of a large heavy-lift rocket and the multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV), while increasing funding for cooperative R&D of commercial rockets and spacecraft.
Armstrong and company snipe that costs for commercial services to space will be "substantially larger and more time consuming" than entrepreneurs predict, not having factored in NASA-funded development costs.
Meanwhile, Cernan's Apollo 17 lunar module pilot and former Senator Harrison Schmitt goes beyond the USA Today piece to call for the wholesale dismantling of NASA. In his blog piece, "46. Space Policy and the Constitution #4," Schmitt recognizes that budgetary actions for the last 8 years (i.e. during the former Bush administration, as well as current activity) have imposed "immense difficulties." In addition, he notes NASA's transformation from a center of national necessity during the 1970s to a source of pork barrel spending with "NASA Centers, large contractors, or concentrations of sub-contractors."
Schmitt wants to ditch NASA with the start of a new presidential term in 2013, starting from scratch to create a dedicated National Space Exploration Administration (NSEA) to enable exploration of deep space. Existing component parts of NASA would be redistributed among existing agencies with the exception of U.S. obligations on the ISS. NASA's climate and earth science research would go to NOAA; aeronautic R&D would go to the recreation of the NACA. Space sciences activities would be shifted to the National Science Foundation, excluding lunar and planetary science.
NSEA would hire a totally new workforce and have the authority to maintain an average employee age of less than 30; NASA's is over 47. A younger work force would provide the "the imagination, motivation, stamina, and courage of young engineers, scientists, and managers" to be successful in meeting the goal of not being in second place to the Chinese or other nation.
Of the two pieces, I have to say I like Schmitt's better; he recognizes that America hasn't come to this point in time overnight, calling out both Congress for pork-barrel politics and more than one administration for failing to provide leadership and funding. Finally, he proposes a solution, abet a radical one, to "fix" NASA and put the country on a more solid path for future space exploration efforts.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
NASA Resurrects Orion Capsule for Deep Space Exploration
Satellite Spotlight: NASA Resurrects Orion Capsule for Deep Space Exploration
The Orion moon capsule has had a short and uncertain path since its development in early 2005. Originally proposed by the Bush administration as a lunar-lander, the Orion craft was repurposed as an escape pod for the international space station when the Constellation program was ended in 2010 due to budgetary concerns. But news today is taking the Orion Capsule from a glorified lifeboat to a interplanetary exploration vessel once again as NASA unveils plans to make it an integral part of its next manned deep space mission.
When the Constellation program was cut by the Obama Whitehouse, it was proposed that the United States take a two prong approach to space exploration. The US would rely on the private industry to handle low earth orbit launches and exploration, while NASA would focus on crafts and missions that would achieve the next milestone in space travel. Unfortunately until now the plan lacked a time table and has been banned publically as a cop out to a much needed overhaul in NASA space exploration strategy.
The Orion capsule was resurrected as a possibility for exploration because of its original design as a long term space travel vessel. As of yet it is the most successful design produced by engineers.
Douglas Cooke, associate administrator of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, told reporters "The Orion-based concept that was designed for deep space missions and had the appropriate accommodations and design requirements for that type of mission," he said. "We did look at alternatives in some of the systems designs we're seeing in the various concepts that are being proposed, for instance, for commercial (vehicles)...And after studying those, we found the design approach we've got is really the best for this type of mission beyond low-Earth orbit."
Developed by Lockheed Martin (News - Alert), the craft consists of a modular capsule that can house four astronauts for around 21-days. Life support systems would be powered by solar arrays once the craft has breached the Earth’s atmosphere. For longer trips, the modular craft could be attached to additional long term living quarters which would contain supplies essential to interplanetary travel.
In a statement, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said the agency is "committed to human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and look forward to developing the next generation of systems to take us there...As we aggressively continue our work on a heavy lift launch vehicle, we are moving forward with an existing contract to keep development of our new crew vehicle on track."
Testing of the newly revived exploration program is not anticipated until 2016. Though the proposed plan will leave a six year gap in US space exploration starting with the end of the Shuttle program , it shows that NASA is at least trying to find direction for its recently meandering attempts to takes us back into space.
The Orion moon capsule has had a short and uncertain path since its development in early 2005. Originally proposed by the Bush administration as a lunar-lander, the Orion craft was repurposed as an escape pod for the international space station when the Constellation program was ended in 2010 due to budgetary concerns. But news today is taking the Orion Capsule from a glorified lifeboat to a interplanetary exploration vessel once again as NASA unveils plans to make it an integral part of its next manned deep space mission.
When the Constellation program was cut by the Obama Whitehouse, it was proposed that the United States take a two prong approach to space exploration. The US would rely on the private industry to handle low earth orbit launches and exploration, while NASA would focus on crafts and missions that would achieve the next milestone in space travel. Unfortunately until now the plan lacked a time table and has been banned publically as a cop out to a much needed overhaul in NASA space exploration strategy.
The Orion capsule was resurrected as a possibility for exploration because of its original design as a long term space travel vessel. As of yet it is the most successful design produced by engineers.
Douglas Cooke, associate administrator of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, told reporters "The Orion-based concept that was designed for deep space missions and had the appropriate accommodations and design requirements for that type of mission," he said. "We did look at alternatives in some of the systems designs we're seeing in the various concepts that are being proposed, for instance, for commercial (vehicles)...And after studying those, we found the design approach we've got is really the best for this type of mission beyond low-Earth orbit."
Developed by Lockheed Martin (News - Alert), the craft consists of a modular capsule that can house four astronauts for around 21-days. Life support systems would be powered by solar arrays once the craft has breached the Earth’s atmosphere. For longer trips, the modular craft could be attached to additional long term living quarters which would contain supplies essential to interplanetary travel.
In a statement, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said the agency is "committed to human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and look forward to developing the next generation of systems to take us there...As we aggressively continue our work on a heavy lift launch vehicle, we are moving forward with an existing contract to keep development of our new crew vehicle on track."
Testing of the newly revived exploration program is not anticipated until 2016. Though the proposed plan will leave a six year gap in US space exploration starting with the end of the Shuttle program , it shows that NASA is at least trying to find direction for its recently meandering attempts to takes us back into space.
Spacewalking Astronauts Upgrade Space Station Despite Discomfort
Space.com: Spacewalking Astronauts Upgrade Space Station Despite Discomfort
HOUSTON – Two spacewalking astronauts upgraded the International Space Station with new power cables and other gear Wednesday (May 24) despite some discomfort when one spaceflyer got something in his eye and the other got stuck in a tether.
Endeavour shuttle astronauts Andrew Feustel and Mike Fincke spent a total of 6 hours and 54 minutes working outside the space station to install a new grapple fixture, connect a series of power cables and perform maintenance work on the orbiting outpost.
It was Feustel who radioed Mission Control about six hours into the spacewalk to say he had something in his right eye and that it was "stinging like crazy" and watering up, causing some serious discomfort inside his spacesuit.
After taking a short break and rubbing his eye against a strap in his helmet, Feustel said it stopped hurting and he was able to continue with his work. [Infographic: Spacesuit Fashion Evolution]
"Ok, feeling better," Feustel told Chamitoff and flight controllers in Houston. "My eye feels much, much better."
Feustel's eye issues came after Fincke got tangled in a safety tether securing him to the space station's exterior. The tether snagged around Fincke's leg while he was routing power cables along the station's Russian segment. Ultimately, he had to call Feustel for help to get free.
Space station upgrade
Today's spacewalk was the sixth of Feustel's career, and the eighth for Fincke. The spacewalk officially began at 1:43 a.m. EDT (0543 GMT), when Feustel and Fincke switched their bulky, white spacesuits onto internal battery power, and exited the station's Quest airlock. [Video: Endeavour's Final Mission Objectives]
"It's great to be back outside. It's the most beautiful planet in the universe," Fincke said after he floated outside the space station.
"Nice view, isn't it?" Feustel said.
The spacewalkers immediately went to work on the exterior of the Russian Zarya control module to attach a power and data grapple fixture that will allow the space station's robotic arm to reach the Russian segment. By using the grapple fixture as a base, the arm will be able to "walk" across the module and extend its reach for future spacewalks or robotic maneuvers.
As they work outside, shuttle commander Mark Kelly and mission specialist Greg Chamitoff supported the spacewalking activities, with Chamitoff directing the choreography and coordinating communications from flight controllers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Amidst the flurry of activity, the crewmates kept things lighthearted as they worked.
"No more speaking English on the Russian segment, guys," Chamitoff joked.
Fincke did, however, take the time to say a few words in Russian as he and Feustel worked outside the Zarya module.
"I want to say a quick hello to our Russian friends," Fincke said before switching to Russian. "I'm not wearing a Russian EVA suit but I can guarantee you that we will do the work on your behalf with much enthusiasm, and Drew says hello."
After the grapple fixture was attached, the spacewalkers made quick work of installing a video signal converter cable nearby. Feustel and Fincke then worked to re-route a series of cables to beef up power to the Russian segment of the space station.
The new cables, which stretch between the Zarya control module and the U.S.'s Unity node, will provide backup power between the two modules and will give the area added electrical redundancy.
Endeavour shuttle astronaut Mike Fincke (left) stretches his arms while wearing a spacesuit during a spacewalk exercise test on May 25, 2011 before the third spacewalk of NASA's STS-134 mission to the International Space Station. The new excercises help remove nitrogen from spacewalkers' bodies to avoid developing the bends.
Feustel and Fincke also finished up some work that was left over from an earlier spacewalk.
The spacewalkers installed a cable for an external wireless system on the outside of the U.S.'s Destiny laboratory. The mission's first spacewalk was cut short due because of a glitch with the carbon dioxide sensor on Chamitoff's suit, forcing flight controllers to move the cable installation to today's outing instead.
The final tasks of the outing included photography of the thrusters on the Zarya module and infrared photography of an experiment located on the exterior of the space station.
Prior to today's spacewalk, Feustel and Fincke also tested a new exercise protocol to help them adapt to the spacewalking environment, and to help them combat decompression sickness, which is more commonly known as "the bends."
The In-Suit Light Exercise (ISLE) protocol helped to increase their metabolic rate to more quickly purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams before the start of the spacewalk. The method involved some callisthenic exercises, such as lifting arms and legs, for a time while inside the pressurized spacesuits.
The ISLE protocol was used instead of the traditional overnight campout in the Quest airlock that precedes spacewalks. Shortly after the start of today's spacewalk, NASA officials reported that the ISLE method appeared to be successful. Mission managers may decide to also use it prior to the fourth and final spacewalk on Friday (May 27).
Today's outing was the 158th spacewalk to build and maintain the space station. It was Feustel's sixth spacewalk, and he has now spent 42 hours and 18 minutes working in the vacuum of space, placing him 14th on the all-time records list. Today's excursion was Feustel's final spacewalk for Endeavour's STS-134 mission.
Today's spacewalk was the eighth of Fincke's career, and it brought his spacewalking hours to a total of 41 hours and 13 minutes. Fincke is now tied for 18th place with Russian cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev on the list of spacewalking records. Fincke and Chamitoff will conduct the mission's fourth and final spacewalk on Friday (May 27), which will also be the final spacewalk conducted by a space shuttle crew.
Endeavour's STS-134 astronaut crew is currently flying a 16-day mission to deliver a $2 billion astrophysics experiment and other supplies to the International Space Station. It is the 25th and final flight of Endeavour before the shuttle is retired along with the rest of NASA's orbiter fleet later this year.
HOUSTON – Two spacewalking astronauts upgraded the International Space Station with new power cables and other gear Wednesday (May 24) despite some discomfort when one spaceflyer got something in his eye and the other got stuck in a tether.
Endeavour shuttle astronauts Andrew Feustel and Mike Fincke spent a total of 6 hours and 54 minutes working outside the space station to install a new grapple fixture, connect a series of power cables and perform maintenance work on the orbiting outpost.
It was Feustel who radioed Mission Control about six hours into the spacewalk to say he had something in his right eye and that it was "stinging like crazy" and watering up, causing some serious discomfort inside his spacesuit.
After taking a short break and rubbing his eye against a strap in his helmet, Feustel said it stopped hurting and he was able to continue with his work. [Infographic: Spacesuit Fashion Evolution]
"Ok, feeling better," Feustel told Chamitoff and flight controllers in Houston. "My eye feels much, much better."
Feustel's eye issues came after Fincke got tangled in a safety tether securing him to the space station's exterior. The tether snagged around Fincke's leg while he was routing power cables along the station's Russian segment. Ultimately, he had to call Feustel for help to get free.
Space station upgrade
Today's spacewalk was the sixth of Feustel's career, and the eighth for Fincke. The spacewalk officially began at 1:43 a.m. EDT (0543 GMT), when Feustel and Fincke switched their bulky, white spacesuits onto internal battery power, and exited the station's Quest airlock. [Video: Endeavour's Final Mission Objectives]
"It's great to be back outside. It's the most beautiful planet in the universe," Fincke said after he floated outside the space station.
"Nice view, isn't it?" Feustel said.
The spacewalkers immediately went to work on the exterior of the Russian Zarya control module to attach a power and data grapple fixture that will allow the space station's robotic arm to reach the Russian segment. By using the grapple fixture as a base, the arm will be able to "walk" across the module and extend its reach for future spacewalks or robotic maneuvers.
As they work outside, shuttle commander Mark Kelly and mission specialist Greg Chamitoff supported the spacewalking activities, with Chamitoff directing the choreography and coordinating communications from flight controllers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Amidst the flurry of activity, the crewmates kept things lighthearted as they worked.
"No more speaking English on the Russian segment, guys," Chamitoff joked.
Fincke did, however, take the time to say a few words in Russian as he and Feustel worked outside the Zarya module.
"I want to say a quick hello to our Russian friends," Fincke said before switching to Russian. "I'm not wearing a Russian EVA suit but I can guarantee you that we will do the work on your behalf with much enthusiasm, and Drew says hello."
After the grapple fixture was attached, the spacewalkers made quick work of installing a video signal converter cable nearby. Feustel and Fincke then worked to re-route a series of cables to beef up power to the Russian segment of the space station.
The new cables, which stretch between the Zarya control module and the U.S.'s Unity node, will provide backup power between the two modules and will give the area added electrical redundancy.
Endeavour shuttle astronaut Mike Fincke (left) stretches his arms while wearing a spacesuit during a spacewalk exercise test on May 25, 2011 before the third spacewalk of NASA's STS-134 mission to the International Space Station. The new excercises help remove nitrogen from spacewalkers' bodies to avoid developing the bends.
Feustel and Fincke also finished up some work that was left over from an earlier spacewalk.
The spacewalkers installed a cable for an external wireless system on the outside of the U.S.'s Destiny laboratory. The mission's first spacewalk was cut short due because of a glitch with the carbon dioxide sensor on Chamitoff's suit, forcing flight controllers to move the cable installation to today's outing instead.
The final tasks of the outing included photography of the thrusters on the Zarya module and infrared photography of an experiment located on the exterior of the space station.
Prior to today's spacewalk, Feustel and Fincke also tested a new exercise protocol to help them adapt to the spacewalking environment, and to help them combat decompression sickness, which is more commonly known as "the bends."
The In-Suit Light Exercise (ISLE) protocol helped to increase their metabolic rate to more quickly purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams before the start of the spacewalk. The method involved some callisthenic exercises, such as lifting arms and legs, for a time while inside the pressurized spacesuits.
The ISLE protocol was used instead of the traditional overnight campout in the Quest airlock that precedes spacewalks. Shortly after the start of today's spacewalk, NASA officials reported that the ISLE method appeared to be successful. Mission managers may decide to also use it prior to the fourth and final spacewalk on Friday (May 27).
Today's outing was the 158th spacewalk to build and maintain the space station. It was Feustel's sixth spacewalk, and he has now spent 42 hours and 18 minutes working in the vacuum of space, placing him 14th on the all-time records list. Today's excursion was Feustel's final spacewalk for Endeavour's STS-134 mission.
Today's spacewalk was the eighth of Fincke's career, and it brought his spacewalking hours to a total of 41 hours and 13 minutes. Fincke is now tied for 18th place with Russian cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev on the list of spacewalking records. Fincke and Chamitoff will conduct the mission's fourth and final spacewalk on Friday (May 27), which will also be the final spacewalk conducted by a space shuttle crew.
Endeavour's STS-134 astronaut crew is currently flying a 16-day mission to deliver a $2 billion astrophysics experiment and other supplies to the International Space Station. It is the 25th and final flight of Endeavour before the shuttle is retired along with the rest of NASA's orbiter fleet later this year.
Monday, May 23, 2011
NASA Endeavour Space Shuttle Has Damaged Heat Shield
PCWorld: NASA Endeavour Space Shuttle Has Damaged Heat Shield
Space Shuttle Endeavour has been in space for about a week now and the crew has just recently found that there is a damaged tile on the shuttle's heat shield, bringing back horrible images of the Columbia disaster which shattered NASA and the nation back in 2003.
On Saturday at around 3:30 AM EDT, Endeavour's crew and NASA conducted an in-depth analysis of the tile to make sure that it was of no danger to the Shuttle during reentry. The crew lowered a boom with cameras and laser sensors to look at the tile which is behind the right landing gear door.
LeRoy Cain, the deputy program manager and chairman of the mission management team, said that the tile had been cleared and that there was no danger to the shuttle from the damaged tile because the structure beneath the tile will still only reach an estimated 219 degrees Fahrenheit--below its maximum temperature capacity of 350 degrees. To make sure that there is no danger, Endeavour's crew will conduct another inspection before departing the ISS.
The heat shield itself is fairly complicated and is composed of some 20,548 individual tiles that vary from between 1 and 5 inches to account for individual heat loads during reentry. The tiles protect against temperatures up to 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, well above the capacity of the shuttle's aluminum skin and structure.
While the tiles are firmly glued on to the shuttle with a very durable and heat-resistant adhesive, it's not unreasonable to think that a damaged tile could come off, in which case the heat and intense reentry pressures could gain access to the inside of the shuttle potentially causing a catastrophic failure. In this case, NASA's analysis made sure that there was enough material left to take the heat.
With the damaged tile on everyone's minds, the astronauts still have a busy schedule ahead with the third space walk coming up this Wednesday. Not everything has been going smoothly, on the last space walk the AP reported that bolts started unexpectedly popping off of covers on a massive 10-foot-diameter joint that turn the station's massive 240 foot long solar arrays. Hopefully everything will eventually come together before the shuttle has to return on June 1st.
Space Shuttle Endeavour has been in space for about a week now and the crew has just recently found that there is a damaged tile on the shuttle's heat shield, bringing back horrible images of the Columbia disaster which shattered NASA and the nation back in 2003.
On Saturday at around 3:30 AM EDT, Endeavour's crew and NASA conducted an in-depth analysis of the tile to make sure that it was of no danger to the Shuttle during reentry. The crew lowered a boom with cameras and laser sensors to look at the tile which is behind the right landing gear door.
LeRoy Cain, the deputy program manager and chairman of the mission management team, said that the tile had been cleared and that there was no danger to the shuttle from the damaged tile because the structure beneath the tile will still only reach an estimated 219 degrees Fahrenheit--below its maximum temperature capacity of 350 degrees. To make sure that there is no danger, Endeavour's crew will conduct another inspection before departing the ISS.
The heat shield itself is fairly complicated and is composed of some 20,548 individual tiles that vary from between 1 and 5 inches to account for individual heat loads during reentry. The tiles protect against temperatures up to 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, well above the capacity of the shuttle's aluminum skin and structure.
While the tiles are firmly glued on to the shuttle with a very durable and heat-resistant adhesive, it's not unreasonable to think that a damaged tile could come off, in which case the heat and intense reentry pressures could gain access to the inside of the shuttle potentially causing a catastrophic failure. In this case, NASA's analysis made sure that there was enough material left to take the heat.
With the damaged tile on everyone's minds, the astronauts still have a busy schedule ahead with the third space walk coming up this Wednesday. Not everything has been going smoothly, on the last space walk the AP reported that bolts started unexpectedly popping off of covers on a massive 10-foot-diameter joint that turn the station's massive 240 foot long solar arrays. Hopefully everything will eventually come together before the shuttle has to return on June 1st.
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Reveals Strangeness of Alien Solar Systems
FoxNews: NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Reveals Strangeness of Alien Solar Systems
Alien solar systems with multiple planets appear to be common in our galaxy, but most of them are quite different than our own, a new study finds.
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope detected 1,235 alien planet candidates in its first four months of operation. Of those, 408 reside in multiple-planet systems, suggesting that our own configuration of multiple worlds orbiting a single star isn't so special.
What may be special, however, is the orientation of our solar system's planets. Some of them are tilted significantly off the solar system's plane, while most of the Kepler systems are nearly as flat as a tabletop, researchers said.
Watching for transiting planets
The Kepler spacecraft launched in March 2009, tasked with searching for Earth-size alien planets in their stars' habitable zones — that just-right range of distances that can support liquid water.
Kepler finds these distant worlds by searching for tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness that occur when a planet transits — or crosses in front of — it from Earth's perspective. The 1,235 candidate planets detected so far still need to be confirmed by follow-up studies, though researchers estimate at least 80 percent of them will pan out.
Nearly one-third of the Kepler candidates are part of multiple-planet solar systems, which came as a surprise to researchers. [Infographic: Stacking Up Alien Solar Systems]
"We didn't anticipate that we would find so many multiple-transit systems," said astronomer David Latham, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in a statement. "We thought we might see two or three. Instead, we found more than 100."
Latham presented the findings today (May 23) at the 218th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Boston.
Strangely flat orbits
In our solar system, some planet orbits are tilted by up to 7 degrees, meaning that an alien astronomer looking for transits wouldn’t be able to detect all eight planets. In particular, they would miss Mercury and Venus, researchers said.
The planetary systems spotted by Kepler have orbits tilted less than 1 degree, they added.
These multiplanet systems are probably so flat because they lack Jupiter-size giant planets, whose gravitational influence can disrupt planetary systems, tilting the orbits of neighboring worlds, researchers said. [Video: Mapping Alien Worlds: How-To Guide]
"Jupiters are the 800-pound gorillas stirring things up during the early history of these systems," Latham said. "Other studies have found plenty of systems with big planets, but they’re not flat."
Finding multiple-planet systems is exciting for reasons beyond their superficial similarity to our own cosmic neighborhood. They could help astronomers confirm the densities of small, rocky, Earthlike alien worlds, which can be tough to pin down using the tried-and-true radial velocity method (which measures the wobble a large planet's gravity induces in its parent star).
In systems with more than one transiting planet, astronomers can use a technique called transit timing variations. They can measure how the time between successive transits changes from orbit to orbit due to gravitational interactions between planets. The size of the effect depends on the planets' masses.
"These planets are pulling and pushing on each other, and we can measure that," said Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer Matthew Holman. "Dozens of the systems Kepler found show signs of transit timing variations."
As Kepler continues to gather data, it will be able to spot planets with wider orbits, including some in the habitable zones of their stars. Transit timing variations may play a key role in confirming the first rocky planets in their stars' habitable zones, researchers said.
Alien solar systems with multiple planets appear to be common in our galaxy, but most of them are quite different than our own, a new study finds.
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope detected 1,235 alien planet candidates in its first four months of operation. Of those, 408 reside in multiple-planet systems, suggesting that our own configuration of multiple worlds orbiting a single star isn't so special.
What may be special, however, is the orientation of our solar system's planets. Some of them are tilted significantly off the solar system's plane, while most of the Kepler systems are nearly as flat as a tabletop, researchers said.
Watching for transiting planets
The Kepler spacecraft launched in March 2009, tasked with searching for Earth-size alien planets in their stars' habitable zones — that just-right range of distances that can support liquid water.
Kepler finds these distant worlds by searching for tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness that occur when a planet transits — or crosses in front of — it from Earth's perspective. The 1,235 candidate planets detected so far still need to be confirmed by follow-up studies, though researchers estimate at least 80 percent of them will pan out.
Nearly one-third of the Kepler candidates are part of multiple-planet solar systems, which came as a surprise to researchers. [Infographic: Stacking Up Alien Solar Systems]
"We didn't anticipate that we would find so many multiple-transit systems," said astronomer David Latham, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in a statement. "We thought we might see two or three. Instead, we found more than 100."
Latham presented the findings today (May 23) at the 218th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Boston.
Strangely flat orbits
In our solar system, some planet orbits are tilted by up to 7 degrees, meaning that an alien astronomer looking for transits wouldn’t be able to detect all eight planets. In particular, they would miss Mercury and Venus, researchers said.
The planetary systems spotted by Kepler have orbits tilted less than 1 degree, they added.
These multiplanet systems are probably so flat because they lack Jupiter-size giant planets, whose gravitational influence can disrupt planetary systems, tilting the orbits of neighboring worlds, researchers said. [Video: Mapping Alien Worlds: How-To Guide]
"Jupiters are the 800-pound gorillas stirring things up during the early history of these systems," Latham said. "Other studies have found plenty of systems with big planets, but they’re not flat."
Finding multiple-planet systems is exciting for reasons beyond their superficial similarity to our own cosmic neighborhood. They could help astronomers confirm the densities of small, rocky, Earthlike alien worlds, which can be tough to pin down using the tried-and-true radial velocity method (which measures the wobble a large planet's gravity induces in its parent star).
In systems with more than one transiting planet, astronomers can use a technique called transit timing variations. They can measure how the time between successive transits changes from orbit to orbit due to gravitational interactions between planets. The size of the effect depends on the planets' masses.
"These planets are pulling and pushing on each other, and we can measure that," said Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer Matthew Holman. "Dozens of the systems Kepler found show signs of transit timing variations."
As Kepler continues to gather data, it will be able to spot planets with wider orbits, including some in the habitable zones of their stars. Transit timing variations may play a key role in confirming the first rocky planets in their stars' habitable zones, researchers said.
Friday, May 20, 2011
NASA sets last-ever shuttle launch for July 8
MSNBC.com: NASA sets last-ever shuttle launch for July 8
The crew of STS-135, NASA's final mission for its space shuttle program, pose in front of their spacecraft, space shuttle Atlantis on May 17. From left to right: mission specialist Rex Walheim, commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialist Sandra Magnus.
The very last space shuttle flight before NASA retires the 30-year program is targeted to launch on July 8, space agency officials announced Friday.
The shuttle Atlantis is slated to carry four veteran astronauts to the International Space Station to deliver supplies and spare parts for the orbiting outpost. NASA is targeting to launch Atlantis from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 8 at around 11:40 a.m. EDT.
The target launch date for Atlantis' 12-day mission is based on NASA's current planning. An official launch date will be announced following the mission's Flight Readiness Review on June 28.
During the final shuttle flight, Atlantis also will deliver an experiment "to demonstrate and test the tools, technologies and techniques needed to robotically refuel satellites in space – even satellites not designed to be serviced," NASA officials said in an announcement.
The four-astronaut crew will return an ammonia pump that failed on the space station in July 2010. Engineers want to understand why the pump failed and hope to use the knowledge to improve designs for future spacecraft.
STS-135 will be Atlantis' 33rd and final mission before it is retired, along with the rest of the agency's orbiter fleet. The historic flight will be the 135th and final mission of NASA's space shuttle program. The space shuttles are retiring in order to make way for a new space exploration program aimed at sending astronauts on deep space missions to visit an asteroid by 2025, and then aim for Mars.
Chris Ferguson, a veteran of two previous shuttle missions, will command the flight with Doug Hurley as the pilot. Astronauts Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim will be the flight's mission specialists. No spacewalks are planned.
Advertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoicesIn the weeks leading up to the launch, NASA will conduct several non-standard activities, including tests and close inspections of Atlantis' external fuel tank. Mission managers want to X-ray aluminum support beams, known as stringers, located near the midsection of the fuel tank.
Cracks were detected in some the metal ribs on the shuttle Discovery's fuel tank after the orbiter's during the first launch attempt in November. Repairs forced a lengthy delay for that flight, which ultimately launched earlier this year.
An X-ray inspection of the similar metal ribs on Atlantis' fuel tank will provide extra confidence that there are no cracks, NASA officials said. Some of the ribs were already modified with extra material to add strength and do not require inspection, they added.
After Atlantis' final flight, the shuttle will be sent to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex for public display. NASA's two other space flown shuttles, Endeavour and Discovery, will also be sent to museums.
The shuttle Endeavour is currently flying its final mission, called STS-134, and is docked at the International Space Station.
Endeavour and its crew launched Monday to deliver a major astrophysics experiment and perform maintenance on the space station during four spacewalks. Endeavour is due to return to Earth on June 1.
Do they have Internet on the Space Shuttle?
SeattlePI: Do they have Internet on the Space Shuttle?
NASA can take pictures of far-away nebulae, find ice on remote planets and send people up to orbit. But can it get Internet service to the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station?
In other words, can astronauts surf Facebook and write tweets from space?
In a recent Q&A with the crew of the Endeavor, which is speeding around the planet at 17,500 mph right now, PBS Newshour got an answer:
GREG JOHNSON: … As shuttle guys, we really don’t partake in the Internet. We’ve got synchronizations with our emails. It kind of gives us a pseudo-email or pseudo-Internet to communicate with our families and friends and our associates. However, I’m going to pass this to Ronnie because on the station, I believe that they have a better Internet than we do on the shuttle.
RON GARAN: So this is something that is somewhat new is our capability to use the Internet. And how it works is we can be on a laptop here on the International Space Station and basically control remotely a PC or a computer down on the ground that is connected to the Internet. So it’s – we’re limited to when we have the correct communications coverage to be able to be on the Internet and there is some lag in it. So it does work slower than you’re probably used to on the ground. But it’s a very useful tool. And it really helps us to stay connected with what’s going on, on the Earth.
OK, I’ll admit that my question above about Twitter was a bit of a trick. Because yes, astronauts are really good at tweeting.
Today, for instance, Garan (Twitter handle: Astro_Ron) tweeted that astronaut Gregory Chamitoff (Twitter handle: Astro_Taz) was outside the space station on a spacewalk. And even posted a photo.
On Wednesday, Garan tweeted a photo of he and Russian cosmonaut Dmitry “Dima” Kondratyev helping the shuttle Endeavor dock with the International Space Station. On Tuesday, he tweeted a photo of one of the 16 moonsets he saw that day.
Garan is not the only astronaut who tweets. You can follow all of them through @NASA_Astronauts, which retweets a lot of their most interesting posts.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Endeavour crew hooks up $2 billion cosmic ray detector
USAToday: Endeavour crew hooks up $2 billion cosmic ray detector
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —The International Space Station's signature science experiment, a $2 billion particle physics detector, is securely attached to the outpost.
Endeavour astronauts Thursday morning lifted the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer from the shuttle's payload bay and attached it to the right, space-facing side of the station's structural truss, completing their top mission objective.
The device was confirmed attached at 5:46 a.m. EDT.
"AMS is probably the most significant scientific experiment on the station," radioed Endeavour mission specialist Greg Chamitoff. "We all look forward to seeing what AMS will discover about the nature of the universe."
Power and data connections must be made before the 7.5-ton instrument is operational, but it should begin collecting data soon.
The instrument will sift through cosmic rays travelling from distant reaches of the universe, characterizing the high-energy particles passing through it in the hopes of better understanding the structure and origin of the universe.
The cosmic ray detector is designed to look for dark matter, the mysterious, unseen substance believed to account for most of the universe's mass; antimatter, which according to the Big Bang theory should have existed in equal quantity to matter at the universe's creation; and "strange" matter created experimentally but not found on Earth.
A prototype instrument flew a test run on shuttle Discovery in June 1998, but it has since been upgraded with more sensitive detectors. It features a large permanent magnet and eight detectors to measure particles' speed, direction, mass and charge.
AMS will now operate as long as the station remains in service, at least until 2020.
The crew also is preparing for the mission's first of four planned spacewalks. Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff are scheduled to float outside the station at 3:16 a.m. EDT Friday.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —The International Space Station's signature science experiment, a $2 billion particle physics detector, is securely attached to the outpost.
Endeavour astronauts Thursday morning lifted the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer from the shuttle's payload bay and attached it to the right, space-facing side of the station's structural truss, completing their top mission objective.
The device was confirmed attached at 5:46 a.m. EDT.
"AMS is probably the most significant scientific experiment on the station," radioed Endeavour mission specialist Greg Chamitoff. "We all look forward to seeing what AMS will discover about the nature of the universe."
Power and data connections must be made before the 7.5-ton instrument is operational, but it should begin collecting data soon.
The instrument will sift through cosmic rays travelling from distant reaches of the universe, characterizing the high-energy particles passing through it in the hopes of better understanding the structure and origin of the universe.
The cosmic ray detector is designed to look for dark matter, the mysterious, unseen substance believed to account for most of the universe's mass; antimatter, which according to the Big Bang theory should have existed in equal quantity to matter at the universe's creation; and "strange" matter created experimentally but not found on Earth.
A prototype instrument flew a test run on shuttle Discovery in June 1998, but it has since been upgraded with more sensitive detectors. It features a large permanent magnet and eight detectors to measure particles' speed, direction, mass and charge.
AMS will now operate as long as the station remains in service, at least until 2020.
The crew also is preparing for the mission's first of four planned spacewalks. Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff are scheduled to float outside the station at 3:16 a.m. EDT Friday.
Astronaut Mark Kelly: Don't Take 'Vibrant' U.S. Space Program for Granted
Fox News: Astronaut Mark Kelly: Don't Take 'Vibrant' U.S. Space Program for Granted
From aboard the gravity-free hold of the International Space Shuttle -- which clearly played havoc with flight engineer Cady Coleman's hair -- space shuttle commander Mark Kelly urged Americans to recognize the tremendous accomplishments of the space shuttle, even as the program winds down.
"The end of the shuttle program is a bittersweet thing," he told Fox News, in a satellite interview from the outer space. "The shuttle has been flying for 30 years. It's been an incredible ship, it's done a lot for our nation. But it is 30 years old, and at some point we need to decide to move on, to a new vehicle, and a vehicle that we could one day use for exploration."
"And hopefully we'll move in that direction."
Kelly arrived at the space station Tuesday morning aboard Endeavour, flying its final mission for NASA before retirement. Endeavour will conclude its final voyage with a landing on June 1.
NASA is shutting down its shuttle program this summer after 30 years, to focus on interplanetary travel. One more mission remains, by space shuttle Atlantis in July.
Kelly said during liftoff that it was in our DNA to reach for the stars and explore, as the shuttle program has done for so many decades -- and we must not stop.
"I think we have a vibrant space program and I think it's not something we should take for granted," Kelly explained. "We're going to continue to operate the space station here, for a lot of years, through 2020 and maybe beyond that. And my opinion is that I think it's really, really valuable, not only to the American people but to everyone on the planet. "
"It's something we need to continue, focus on, invest in -- it's really important."
Kelly is married to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was recuperating Thursday from surgery to repair her skull -- another milestone in her recovery from an assassination attempt -- while doctors focus on the upcoming stages of her rehabilitation.
Kelly told Fox News that Giffords' recovery was going as well as could be expected.
"I talked to her mom and her chief of staff and my brother late in the day, while her surgery was still going on -- and I got an email from her neurosurgeon yesterday," Kelly explained. "And it went great, I mean, as well as he could expect, and she is recovering and will be back at the rehab hospital sometime today or tomorrow."
Coleman explained that Kelly and the other astronauts were already fitting in well among the crew of the International Space Station.
"This shuttle crew is great to have on board," said Cady Coleman. "They're great guests to have, they don't behave like guests, they behave like family," she told Fox News.
"We're doing some really important things this week with them, we're getting a lot of things doneto make this station a place where we can do science for the years to come."
From aboard the gravity-free hold of the International Space Shuttle -- which clearly played havoc with flight engineer Cady Coleman's hair -- space shuttle commander Mark Kelly urged Americans to recognize the tremendous accomplishments of the space shuttle, even as the program winds down.
"The end of the shuttle program is a bittersweet thing," he told Fox News, in a satellite interview from the outer space. "The shuttle has been flying for 30 years. It's been an incredible ship, it's done a lot for our nation. But it is 30 years old, and at some point we need to decide to move on, to a new vehicle, and a vehicle that we could one day use for exploration."
"And hopefully we'll move in that direction."
Kelly arrived at the space station Tuesday morning aboard Endeavour, flying its final mission for NASA before retirement. Endeavour will conclude its final voyage with a landing on June 1.
NASA is shutting down its shuttle program this summer after 30 years, to focus on interplanetary travel. One more mission remains, by space shuttle Atlantis in July.
Kelly said during liftoff that it was in our DNA to reach for the stars and explore, as the shuttle program has done for so many decades -- and we must not stop.
"I think we have a vibrant space program and I think it's not something we should take for granted," Kelly explained. "We're going to continue to operate the space station here, for a lot of years, through 2020 and maybe beyond that. And my opinion is that I think it's really, really valuable, not only to the American people but to everyone on the planet. "
"It's something we need to continue, focus on, invest in -- it's really important."
Kelly is married to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was recuperating Thursday from surgery to repair her skull -- another milestone in her recovery from an assassination attempt -- while doctors focus on the upcoming stages of her rehabilitation.
Kelly told Fox News that Giffords' recovery was going as well as could be expected.
"I talked to her mom and her chief of staff and my brother late in the day, while her surgery was still going on -- and I got an email from her neurosurgeon yesterday," Kelly explained. "And it went great, I mean, as well as he could expect, and she is recovering and will be back at the rehab hospital sometime today or tomorrow."
Coleman explained that Kelly and the other astronauts were already fitting in well among the crew of the International Space Station.
"This shuttle crew is great to have on board," said Cady Coleman. "They're great guests to have, they don't behave like guests, they behave like family," she told Fox News.
"We're doing some really important things this week with them, we're getting a lot of things doneto make this station a place where we can do science for the years to come."
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Woman's photos, video of space shuttle launch turn into an online hit
660News: Woman's photos, video of space shuttle launch turn into an online hit
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Groggy from a late night watching the Yankees, frigid from a chilled airplane cabin, Stefanie Gordon stirred to action after the pilot's announcement. Lifting her iPhone to the plane's window, she captured an otherworldly image that rocketed around the globe as fast as her subject: Space shuttle Endeavour soaring from a bank of clouds, its towering plume of white smoke lighting the azure sky.
She had never imagined the response her airborne image — capturing the last launch of Endeavour and the next-to-last space shuttle flight — would ignite. The images and video have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Twitter alone, landed on network newscasts and been published in newspapers worldwide.
In turn, they've made a photographic celebrity of sorts of the unemployed 33-year-old from Hoboken, N.J.
"It just blew up," she said of the attention.
Gordon caught an early Delta flight from New York to West Palm Beach on Monday to visit her parents and had a whole row to herself, never imagining the history she would record.
She stretched out and took a nap. Then she awoke shortly before the pilot announced the descent had begun and a sighting of the shuttle was possible. She had forgotten Endeavour was even taking off at 8:56 a.m. ET, but readied her iPhone just in case.
Then, the pilot came on again, alerting passengers the shuttle was in sight.
"Everybody ran over to the east side of the plane," Gordon said Tuesday, "and all of a sudden there it was in the clouds."
All told, she shot 12 seconds of footage of the shuttle arcing on its simple stream of smoke into space. She also shot three still photographs.
The plane landed minutes later in West Palm Beach and while she was waiting at the luggage carousel, at 9:31 a.m., she began uploading to Twitter. As she waited for her father to pick her up, she realized her work was making a splash.
"My phone just started going crazy," she said.
Among those who reached out to Gordon was Anne Farrar, a photo editor at the Washington Post, who saw the images after they were posted by a friend on Facebook. She said she'd never seen anything quite like this view of a shuttle launch before.
"It was just a really imaginative way to bring it to our readers," Farrar said. "It's almost like an underwater view."
Endeavour is on a 16-day trip — the second to last space shuttle flight. Its main mission is to attach to the space station a $2 billion physics experiment.
The Associated Press contacted Gordon through Facebook and purchased the images. The AP often obtains photos from witnesses, called citizen journalists.
As for Gordon, she lost her job at as a meeting planner at a non-profit organization last month. If the exposure from her pictures helps land her dream job of working in the sports field on special events and promotions, she said, it would all be worth it. Or if someone thinks her photographic eye qualifies her for a permanent job shooting video or photos, she wouldn't turn that down either.
For now, she's basking in the afterglow of her launch shots and hoping for some rest once the media frenzy passes.
"Laying by the pool would be really nice," she said.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Groggy from a late night watching the Yankees, frigid from a chilled airplane cabin, Stefanie Gordon stirred to action after the pilot's announcement. Lifting her iPhone to the plane's window, she captured an otherworldly image that rocketed around the globe as fast as her subject: Space shuttle Endeavour soaring from a bank of clouds, its towering plume of white smoke lighting the azure sky.
She had never imagined the response her airborne image — capturing the last launch of Endeavour and the next-to-last space shuttle flight — would ignite. The images and video have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Twitter alone, landed on network newscasts and been published in newspapers worldwide.
In turn, they've made a photographic celebrity of sorts of the unemployed 33-year-old from Hoboken, N.J.
"It just blew up," she said of the attention.
Gordon caught an early Delta flight from New York to West Palm Beach on Monday to visit her parents and had a whole row to herself, never imagining the history she would record.
She stretched out and took a nap. Then she awoke shortly before the pilot announced the descent had begun and a sighting of the shuttle was possible. She had forgotten Endeavour was even taking off at 8:56 a.m. ET, but readied her iPhone just in case.
Then, the pilot came on again, alerting passengers the shuttle was in sight.
"Everybody ran over to the east side of the plane," Gordon said Tuesday, "and all of a sudden there it was in the clouds."
All told, she shot 12 seconds of footage of the shuttle arcing on its simple stream of smoke into space. She also shot three still photographs.
The plane landed minutes later in West Palm Beach and while she was waiting at the luggage carousel, at 9:31 a.m., she began uploading to Twitter. As she waited for her father to pick her up, she realized her work was making a splash.
"My phone just started going crazy," she said.
Among those who reached out to Gordon was Anne Farrar, a photo editor at the Washington Post, who saw the images after they were posted by a friend on Facebook. She said she'd never seen anything quite like this view of a shuttle launch before.
"It was just a really imaginative way to bring it to our readers," Farrar said. "It's almost like an underwater view."
Endeavour is on a 16-day trip — the second to last space shuttle flight. Its main mission is to attach to the space station a $2 billion physics experiment.
The Associated Press contacted Gordon through Facebook and purchased the images. The AP often obtains photos from witnesses, called citizen journalists.
As for Gordon, she lost her job at as a meeting planner at a non-profit organization last month. If the exposure from her pictures helps land her dream job of working in the sports field on special events and promotions, she said, it would all be worth it. Or if someone thinks her photographic eye qualifies her for a permanent job shooting video or photos, she wouldn't turn that down either.
For now, she's basking in the afterglow of her launch shots and hoping for some rest once the media frenzy passes.
"Laying by the pool would be really nice," she said.
Shuttle Endeavour arrives at space station for final visit, delivers pricey physics experiment
The Washington Post National: Shuttle Endeavour arrives at space station for final visit, delivers pricey physics experiment
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Endeavour and its six astronauts showed up at the International Space Station on Wednesday with the most expensive payload ever carried by a shuttle, a $2 billion magnetic device scientists hope will unravel the mysteries of the cosmos.
Shuttle commander Mark Kelly — the husband of wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — carried out Endeavour’s final docking. The lead flight director described the linkup as “really silky smooth” and noted Kelly has been performing “unbelievably” well in orbit.
Giffords was supposed to undergo surgery in Houston on Wednesday, two days after attending her husband’s launch. Doctors planned to replace part of her skull with a plastic implant. She was shot in the head in early January during a political event in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz.
“If you didn’t know any of that was going on, you wouldn’t have any idea that those kinds of things are going on in his personal life,” flight director Gary Horlacher told reporters. “The surgeons are keeping him informed appropriately.”
Now that he’s at the space station, Kelly can use the Internet-protocol phone there. He also has access to the Internet aboard the orbiting outpost, and can speak privately with NASA’s flight surgeons via Mission Control whenever he wishes.
The two orbiting crews will attach the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the space station Thursday.
Endeavour — making its final journey and the next-to-last flight of NASA’s shuttle era — docked with the space station as the two vessels soared more than 200 miles above the planet, near Chile.
Kelly was the first to float into the space station. He was greeted with handshakes and hugs.
“Hey, you guys wore coordinating shirts,” Kelly told the six space station residents, all dressed in blue polo shirts and tan slacks. “We didn’t do that.”
The combined crews include seven Americans, three Russians and two Italians.
The space station occupants rang the ship’s bell to mark Endeavour’s arrival. It is the 12th and final visit by Endeavour to the space station; after this mission, the baby of NASA’s shuttle fleet will be decommissioned and sent to a museum in Los Angeles.
Atlantis will carry out the final shuttle trip in July.
Kelly and his crew will spend nearly two weeks at the space station. Their main job is to install the 7-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an international collaboration representing 16 countries and led by Nobel-winning physicist Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the heart of the spectrometer is a 3-foot, doughnut-shaped magnet. The instrument will seek out invisible dark matter as well as antimatter; whether any of this is found or not, the results will help explain what the universe is made of and how it formed.
As soon as the spectrometer is installed, it immediately should begin working. Ting expects to start receiving data within an hour or two.
The AMS will remain anchored to the space station for the rest of its life. The outpost will continue to operate until at least 2020.
Endeavour’s crew also will unload spare parts for the space station and carry out four spacewalks, the first one scheduled for Friday.
Horlacher said he doesn’t dwell on the fact that the AMS constantly seems to be overshadowed by attention on Kelly and Giffords.
“I know folks are kind of focused on Mark and his situation,” he said. “But AMS is going to be around talking to us for a long, long time. So I’m very much looking forward to the results over the years.”
For now, 12 astronauts are aboard the shuttle-station complex. On Monday, three of the six space station residents will climb into their Russian Soyuz capsule and return to Earth after a five-month stay. Endeavour’s two-week launch delay resulted in the mission interruption.
NASA will continue to rely on Russia to transport U.S. astronauts back and forth to the space station for the foreseeable future. The space agency wants private companies in America to take over this operation, hopefully within a few years.
The Obama administration wants NASA focusing on interplanetary travel, once the shuttles are retired.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Endeavour and its six astronauts showed up at the International Space Station on Wednesday with the most expensive payload ever carried by a shuttle, a $2 billion magnetic device scientists hope will unravel the mysteries of the cosmos.
Shuttle commander Mark Kelly — the husband of wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — carried out Endeavour’s final docking. The lead flight director described the linkup as “really silky smooth” and noted Kelly has been performing “unbelievably” well in orbit.
Giffords was supposed to undergo surgery in Houston on Wednesday, two days after attending her husband’s launch. Doctors planned to replace part of her skull with a plastic implant. She was shot in the head in early January during a political event in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz.
“If you didn’t know any of that was going on, you wouldn’t have any idea that those kinds of things are going on in his personal life,” flight director Gary Horlacher told reporters. “The surgeons are keeping him informed appropriately.”
Now that he’s at the space station, Kelly can use the Internet-protocol phone there. He also has access to the Internet aboard the orbiting outpost, and can speak privately with NASA’s flight surgeons via Mission Control whenever he wishes.
The two orbiting crews will attach the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the space station Thursday.
Endeavour — making its final journey and the next-to-last flight of NASA’s shuttle era — docked with the space station as the two vessels soared more than 200 miles above the planet, near Chile.
Kelly was the first to float into the space station. He was greeted with handshakes and hugs.
“Hey, you guys wore coordinating shirts,” Kelly told the six space station residents, all dressed in blue polo shirts and tan slacks. “We didn’t do that.”
The combined crews include seven Americans, three Russians and two Italians.
The space station occupants rang the ship’s bell to mark Endeavour’s arrival. It is the 12th and final visit by Endeavour to the space station; after this mission, the baby of NASA’s shuttle fleet will be decommissioned and sent to a museum in Los Angeles.
Atlantis will carry out the final shuttle trip in July.
Kelly and his crew will spend nearly two weeks at the space station. Their main job is to install the 7-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an international collaboration representing 16 countries and led by Nobel-winning physicist Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the heart of the spectrometer is a 3-foot, doughnut-shaped magnet. The instrument will seek out invisible dark matter as well as antimatter; whether any of this is found or not, the results will help explain what the universe is made of and how it formed.
As soon as the spectrometer is installed, it immediately should begin working. Ting expects to start receiving data within an hour or two.
The AMS will remain anchored to the space station for the rest of its life. The outpost will continue to operate until at least 2020.
Endeavour’s crew also will unload spare parts for the space station and carry out four spacewalks, the first one scheduled for Friday.
Horlacher said he doesn’t dwell on the fact that the AMS constantly seems to be overshadowed by attention on Kelly and Giffords.
“I know folks are kind of focused on Mark and his situation,” he said. “But AMS is going to be around talking to us for a long, long time. So I’m very much looking forward to the results over the years.”
For now, 12 astronauts are aboard the shuttle-station complex. On Monday, three of the six space station residents will climb into their Russian Soyuz capsule and return to Earth after a five-month stay. Endeavour’s two-week launch delay resulted in the mission interruption.
NASA will continue to rely on Russia to transport U.S. astronauts back and forth to the space station for the foreseeable future. The space agency wants private companies in America to take over this operation, hopefully within a few years.
The Obama administration wants NASA focusing on interplanetary travel, once the shuttles are retired.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Booklist: For Spacious Skies, by Scott Carpenter and Kris Stoever
For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut, by Scott Carpenter and Kris Stoever
HarcourtBooks, 2002
332 pages plus notes, acknowledgments, and index. 16 pages of b&w photos
Library: B Carpe, M
Description
On May 24, 1962, the tiny spacecraft Aurora 7 carried Scott Carpenter into space, American history, and a lifetime of controversy.
For Spacious Skies offers this Mercury astronaut's never-before-told account of life at NASA. He takes us through the mysteries of the selection process, to the desert for survival training, into the simulator, and onto the contour couch. He describes in stunning detail the flight that made him the second American to orbit the Earth.
During the early years of the space program, each mission helped determine NASA's research progress, the efficiency of its design, and its place in the race to the moon.
When Aurora 7 began to malfunction, everyone at hand frantically tried to detect the cause. What was ultimately found to be a glitch in Aurora 7's pitch horizon scanner forced the astronaut to overshoot his expected landing site by 250 miles and later brought the intentions made during the flight under intense scrutiny.
Scott Carpenter, with his daughter, Kris Stoever, clears up all lingering questions about his flight while telling the history of an amazing frontier family and the strength of the American pioneer spirit.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part 1: Earth
1. Buddy
2. A Frozen Sea
3. The Unpleasantness
4. Pocketknives, Pens, and Other Edge Tools
Part 2: Sky
5. I am now an Naval Aviation Cadet
6. A Navy Wife?
7. Love, War and Quonset Huts
Part 3: The Stars
8. For Spacious Skies
9. You are Hereby Ordered
10. One Hundred Chimps
11. The Fibrillating Heart
12. Delta Becomes Aurora
13. Commander Carpenter and his Flying Machine!
14. The Color of Fire
Epilogue
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Nearing space station, Endeavour crew checks heat shield
Reuters: Nearing space station, Endeavour crew checks heat shield
(Reuters) - Shuttle Endeavour closed in on the International Space Station on Tuesday while astronauts checked the ship's heat shield for any damage from Monday's launch.
Endeavour, which is making its 25th and final spaceflight, is due to arrive at the orbital outpost at 6:16 a.m. EDT Wednesday. It carries a $2 billion particle physics experiment and a pallet of spare parts for the station.
"Endeavour is performing absolutely flawlessly," flight director Gary Horlacher told reporters Tuesday.
The launch had been delayed two weeks by a faulty heater in one of the ship's onboard power generators.
The six-man crew, led by four-time veteran Mark Kelly, spent their first full day in orbit using a sensor-studded boom on the shuttle's 50-foot-long robot arm to scan Endeavour's heat shield for damage.
The routine inspection was added after the 2003 Columbia explosion, which was traced to wing damage from a debris impact during launch. The shuttle broke apart as it flew through the atmosphere for landing, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
In addition to delivering the station's premier science instrument and critical spare parts, Endeavour's crew will make four spacewalks and tackle other maintenance jobs needed to get the station ready for operations after the shuttle program ends.
NASA plans a final shuttle mission to the station in July to deliver a year's worth of supplies.
NASA is retiring its three-ship fleet due to high operating costs and to develop new spaceships that can travel to other destinations beyond the station's 220-mile-high orbit.
Endeavour is due back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 1.
(Reuters) - Shuttle Endeavour closed in on the International Space Station on Tuesday while astronauts checked the ship's heat shield for any damage from Monday's launch.
Endeavour, which is making its 25th and final spaceflight, is due to arrive at the orbital outpost at 6:16 a.m. EDT Wednesday. It carries a $2 billion particle physics experiment and a pallet of spare parts for the station.
"Endeavour is performing absolutely flawlessly," flight director Gary Horlacher told reporters Tuesday.
The launch had been delayed two weeks by a faulty heater in one of the ship's onboard power generators.
The six-man crew, led by four-time veteran Mark Kelly, spent their first full day in orbit using a sensor-studded boom on the shuttle's 50-foot-long robot arm to scan Endeavour's heat shield for damage.
The routine inspection was added after the 2003 Columbia explosion, which was traced to wing damage from a debris impact during launch. The shuttle broke apart as it flew through the atmosphere for landing, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
In addition to delivering the station's premier science instrument and critical spare parts, Endeavour's crew will make four spacewalks and tackle other maintenance jobs needed to get the station ready for operations after the shuttle program ends.
NASA plans a final shuttle mission to the station in July to deliver a year's worth of supplies.
NASA is retiring its three-ship fleet due to high operating costs and to develop new spaceships that can travel to other destinations beyond the station's 220-mile-high orbit.
Endeavour is due back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 1.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Space Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Toward International Space Station One Last Time
PopSci: Space Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Toward International Space Station One Last Time
NASA's youngest space shuttle left Earth for the last time Monday, carrying a physics experiment and spare parts to the International Space Station. It was a bittersweet moment for shuttle followers who watched the shuttle's picture-perfect liftoff with the knowledge that there's only one of these left.
Commander Mark Kelly had some poignant words in the moments before ignition.
"As Americans, we endeavor to build a better life than the generation before and we endeavor to be a united nation," Kelly said. "In these efforts we are often tested. It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore. We must not stop."
This was at least in part a tacit reference Kelly's wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically injured in a shooting rampage at a town hall meeting with constituents earlier this year. Giffords attended the launch.
The shuttle was supposed to launch two weeks ago, but engineers found an electrical problem in a heating system designed to keep one of the spacecraft's power systems warm in space. They replaced some electrical wiring and tested the system before giving the green light for launch on Monday morning.
Endeavour will dock with the ISS Wednesday morning. The 16-day mission includes four spacewalks, in which astronauts will deliver spare parts for the Dextre robot, new communications antennae and a high-pressure gas tank. The shuttle is also delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which will search for dark matter and other cosmic phenomena.
The crew is leaving behind a piece of their ship — Endeavour's orbiter boom sensor system, which could serve as an extension for the station's robotic arm. After Endeavour undocks, Kelly and pilot Greg H. Johnson will ease the shuttle back toward the station to test a new docking system that could help a future shuttle replacement.
Endeavour is carrying two first-time astronauts and the final international astronaut to fly on the shuttle. The last mission, Atlantis' June 28 launch, will be crewed by Americans.
Endeavour crew recreates 'Star Trek' movie poster
The only problem is the poster is from the "relaunch" of Star Trek, not the original, best series!
MSNBC: Endeavour crew recreates 'Star Trek' movie poster
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The six astronauts flying on NASA's final flight of the space shuttle Endeavour are a serious bunch, but they've got a fun streak too. Case in point: The astronauts apparently like the science fiction franchise "Star Trek" enough to re-enact its most recent movie poster.
Creating custom mission posters based on popular movies has long been a tradition for NASA shuttle and space station crews. [Gallery: NASA's Most Offbeat Mission Posters]
But while past mission posters have recreated the film versions of "Ocean's Eleven" or the Matrix and Harry Potter movies, the six-man STS-134 crew of Endeavour chose something a bit more space-y: the 2009 reboot of "Star Trek," directed by J.J. Abrams.
"That was my idea!" Endeavour mission specialist Drew Feustel told SPACE.com.
Feustel said he had seen the movie during a previous spaceflight, when he launched on Atlantis in May 2009 to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.
"That movie came out basically the day we launched and we were fortunate to have that movie uplinked to us on orbit," Feustel said. "I really liked the movie. I thought it was pretty neat."
Endeavour's STS-134 astronauts are slated to launch aboard shuttle Endeavour from here at Kennedy Space Center on Monday at 8:56 a.m. EDT (1256 GMT). It will be the last voyage for Endeavour before the orbiter is retired. [Photos: Endeavour's Final Mission]
Advertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoicesSpace, the real final frontier
Feustel said he suggested the latest "Star Trek" film as the theme for the STS-134 poster, and the rest of the crew agreed.
But Feustel's crewmate Greg Chamitoff remembered it differently.
"I kept trying to remember whose idea that was, and I think it might have been mine," Chamitoff said in an interview.
Regardless of the origin of the poster idea, the crew seemed to unite behind the concept.
"A lot of us are ["Star Trek" fans]," Chamitoff said of the Endeavour astronauts.
The poster features the six astronauts looking stoically ahead, their faces each in half shadow, with a dark background and "STS-134" in Star Trek font underneath. Leading the crew, in the James T. Kirk position, is Endeavour commander Mark Kelly.
"It's a pretty close approximation," Feustel said of the finished product. "It looks pretty cool; we like it."
NASA and "Star Trek"
The poster is not the STS-134 crew's only connection to the famous science fiction TV and movie franchise.
In May 2005, mission specialist Mike Fincke appeared as an extra during the final episode of the show "Star Trek: Enterprise." He visited the set during vacation, along with fellow astronaut Terry Virts, who also appeared in the episode. Fincke played an NX-01 engineer on the fictional starship.
The International Space Station's Expedition 21 crew (the current crew is Expedition 27) also donned Star Trek uniforms for their mission poster in 2009.
On Endeavour's last mission before the orbiter is retired, the space shuttle will visit the International Space Station to deliver spare hardware and a new $2 billion astrophysics experiment to search for exotic particles.
In an odd side-note, Kelly and Chamitoff also have another movie-themed poster under their belt. Both astronauts were on the crew of NASA's STS-124 flight to the space station in 2008. That crew's choice of a film to emulate: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Kelly commanded that mission on the shuttle Discovery.
The mission's new name, according to the poster? "STS-124 and the Order of Discovery."
Friday, May 13, 2011
Astronomers have no clue what's in 96 percent of the universe
Mother Nature Network: Astronomers have no clue what's in 96 percent of the universe
NEW YORK — All the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today make up just 4 percent of the universe. The other 96 percent is made of stuff astronomers can't see, detect or even comprehend.
These mysterious substances are called dark energy and dark matter. Astronomers infer their existence based on their gravitational influence on what little bits of the universe can be seen, but dark matter and energy themselves continue to elude all detection.
"The overwhelming majority of the universe is: who knows?" explains science writer Richard Panek, who spoke about these oddities of our universe on Monday (May 9) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) here in Manhattan. "It's unknown for now, and possibly forever."
In Panek's new book, The 4 Percent Universe (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), Panek recounts the story of how dark matter and dark energy were discovered. It's a history filled with mind-boggling scientific surprises and fierce competition between the researchers racing to find answers.
Dark matter
Some of the first inklings astronomers had that there might be more mass in the universe than just the stuff we can see came in the 1960s and 1970s. Vera Rubin, a young astronomer at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, observed the speeds of stars at various locations in galaxies.
Simple Newtonian physics predicted that stars on the outskirts of a galaxy would orbit more slowly than stars at the center. Yet Rubin's observations found no drop-off at all in the stars' velocities further out in a galaxy. Instead, she found that all stars in a galaxy seem to circle the center at roughly the same speed.
"It means that galaxies should be flying apart, should be completely unstable," Panek said. "Something's missing here."
But research by other astronomers confirmed the odd finding. Ultimately, based on observations and computer models, scientists concluded that there must be much more matter in galaxies than what's obvious to us. If the stars and gas that we can see inside galaxies are only a small portion of their total mass, then the velocities make sense.
Astronomers nicknamed this unseen mass dark matter.
Where is it?
Yet, in the nearly 40 years that followed, researchers still haven't been able to figure out what dark matter is made of.
A popular hypothesis is that dark matter is formed by exotic particles that don't interact with regular matter, or even light, and so are invisible. Yet their mass exerts a gravitational pull, just like normal matter, which is why they affect the velocities of stars and other phenomena in the universe. [Video: Dark Matter in 3D]
However, try as hard as they might, scientists have yet to detect any of these particles, even with tests designed specifically to target their predicted properties.
"I think on the dark matter side there is some discouragement among the people who are kind of mid-career," Panek said. "They went into this field thinking, 'OK, we're going to solve this problem and then we'll build from there.' But 15, 20 years later, they're saying, 'I've invested my career in this and I don’t know if I'm going to find anything in my lifetime.'"
Still, many hold out hope that we're getting close and that experiments such as the newly built Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator in Geneva may finally solve the puzzle.
Dark energy
Dark energy is possibly even more baffling than dark matter. It's a relatively more recent discovery, and it's one that scientists have even less of a chance of understanding anytime soon.
It all started in the mid-1990s, when two teams of researchers were trying to figure out how fast the universe was expanding, in order to predict whether it would keep spreading out forever, or if it would eventually crumple back in on itself in a "Big Crunch."
To do this, scientists used special tricks to determine the distances of many exploded stars, called supernovas, throughout the universe. They then measured their velocities to determine how fast they were moving away from us.
When we view very distant stars, we are viewing an earlier time in the history of the universe, because those stars' light has taken millions and billions of light-years to travel to us. Thus, looking at the speeds of stars at various distances tells us how fast the universe was expanding at various points in its lifetime.
Astronomers predicted two possibilities: either the universe has been expanding at roughly the same rate throughout time, or that the universe has been slowing in its expansion as it gets older.
Shockingly, the researchers observed neither possibility. Instead, the universe appeared to be accelerating in its expansion.
That fact could not be explained based on what we knew of the universe at that time. All the gravity of all the mass in the cosmos should have been pulling the universe back inward, just as gravity pulls a ball back down to Earth after it's been thrown into the air.
"There's some other force out there or something on a cosmic scale that is counteracting the force of gravity," Panek explained. "People didn't believe this at first because it's such a weird result."
Fierce competition
Scientists named this mysterious force dark energy. Though no one has a good idea of what dark energy is, or why it exists, it is the force that appears to be counteracting gravity and causing the universe to accelerate in its expansion.
The lack of a good explanation for dark energy hasn't seemed to dampen scientists' enthusiasm for it.
"What I hear again and again is how excited people are to be working in this field right now, when this revolution is going on," Panek told SPACE.com. "The problems are so great and profound, they're actually rather thrilled with it."
Overall, dark energy is thought to contribute 73 percent of all the mass and energy in the universe. Another 23 percent is dark matter, which leaves only 4 percent of the universe composed of regular matter, such as stars, planets and people.
This bizarre, but apparently true, conclusion was reached at about the same time by the two groups working to measure the expansion of the universe. The competition between the groups became very contentious, Panek said, and they grew to dislike each other quite a lot.
Ultimately, though, members of both teams should reap the rewards of finding one of the biggest surprises in the history of science.
"I think that it's kind of assumed the dark energy will win the discoverers the Nobel," Panek said. "There certainly is that assumption that it's just a matter of years."
NEW YORK — All the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today make up just 4 percent of the universe. The other 96 percent is made of stuff astronomers can't see, detect or even comprehend.
These mysterious substances are called dark energy and dark matter. Astronomers infer their existence based on their gravitational influence on what little bits of the universe can be seen, but dark matter and energy themselves continue to elude all detection.
"The overwhelming majority of the universe is: who knows?" explains science writer Richard Panek, who spoke about these oddities of our universe on Monday (May 9) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) here in Manhattan. "It's unknown for now, and possibly forever."
In Panek's new book, The 4 Percent Universe (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), Panek recounts the story of how dark matter and dark energy were discovered. It's a history filled with mind-boggling scientific surprises and fierce competition between the researchers racing to find answers.
Dark matter
Some of the first inklings astronomers had that there might be more mass in the universe than just the stuff we can see came in the 1960s and 1970s. Vera Rubin, a young astronomer at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, observed the speeds of stars at various locations in galaxies.
Simple Newtonian physics predicted that stars on the outskirts of a galaxy would orbit more slowly than stars at the center. Yet Rubin's observations found no drop-off at all in the stars' velocities further out in a galaxy. Instead, she found that all stars in a galaxy seem to circle the center at roughly the same speed.
"It means that galaxies should be flying apart, should be completely unstable," Panek said. "Something's missing here."
But research by other astronomers confirmed the odd finding. Ultimately, based on observations and computer models, scientists concluded that there must be much more matter in galaxies than what's obvious to us. If the stars and gas that we can see inside galaxies are only a small portion of their total mass, then the velocities make sense.
Astronomers nicknamed this unseen mass dark matter.
Where is it?
Yet, in the nearly 40 years that followed, researchers still haven't been able to figure out what dark matter is made of.
A popular hypothesis is that dark matter is formed by exotic particles that don't interact with regular matter, or even light, and so are invisible. Yet their mass exerts a gravitational pull, just like normal matter, which is why they affect the velocities of stars and other phenomena in the universe. [Video: Dark Matter in 3D]
However, try as hard as they might, scientists have yet to detect any of these particles, even with tests designed specifically to target their predicted properties.
"I think on the dark matter side there is some discouragement among the people who are kind of mid-career," Panek said. "They went into this field thinking, 'OK, we're going to solve this problem and then we'll build from there.' But 15, 20 years later, they're saying, 'I've invested my career in this and I don’t know if I'm going to find anything in my lifetime.'"
Still, many hold out hope that we're getting close and that experiments such as the newly built Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator in Geneva may finally solve the puzzle.
Dark energy
Dark energy is possibly even more baffling than dark matter. It's a relatively more recent discovery, and it's one that scientists have even less of a chance of understanding anytime soon.
It all started in the mid-1990s, when two teams of researchers were trying to figure out how fast the universe was expanding, in order to predict whether it would keep spreading out forever, or if it would eventually crumple back in on itself in a "Big Crunch."
To do this, scientists used special tricks to determine the distances of many exploded stars, called supernovas, throughout the universe. They then measured their velocities to determine how fast they were moving away from us.
When we view very distant stars, we are viewing an earlier time in the history of the universe, because those stars' light has taken millions and billions of light-years to travel to us. Thus, looking at the speeds of stars at various distances tells us how fast the universe was expanding at various points in its lifetime.
Astronomers predicted two possibilities: either the universe has been expanding at roughly the same rate throughout time, or that the universe has been slowing in its expansion as it gets older.
Shockingly, the researchers observed neither possibility. Instead, the universe appeared to be accelerating in its expansion.
That fact could not be explained based on what we knew of the universe at that time. All the gravity of all the mass in the cosmos should have been pulling the universe back inward, just as gravity pulls a ball back down to Earth after it's been thrown into the air.
"There's some other force out there or something on a cosmic scale that is counteracting the force of gravity," Panek explained. "People didn't believe this at first because it's such a weird result."
Fierce competition
Scientists named this mysterious force dark energy. Though no one has a good idea of what dark energy is, or why it exists, it is the force that appears to be counteracting gravity and causing the universe to accelerate in its expansion.
The lack of a good explanation for dark energy hasn't seemed to dampen scientists' enthusiasm for it.
"What I hear again and again is how excited people are to be working in this field right now, when this revolution is going on," Panek told SPACE.com. "The problems are so great and profound, they're actually rather thrilled with it."
Overall, dark energy is thought to contribute 73 percent of all the mass and energy in the universe. Another 23 percent is dark matter, which leaves only 4 percent of the universe composed of regular matter, such as stars, planets and people.
This bizarre, but apparently true, conclusion was reached at about the same time by the two groups working to measure the expansion of the universe. The competition between the groups became very contentious, Panek said, and they grew to dislike each other quite a lot.
Ultimately, though, members of both teams should reap the rewards of finding one of the biggest surprises in the history of science.
"I think that it's kind of assumed the dark energy will win the discoverers the Nobel," Panek said. "There certainly is that assumption that it's just a matter of years."
Giffords Coming To Husband's Endeavour Launch
International Business Times: Giffords Coming To Husband's Endeavour Launch
Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was nearly slain down in an attempted homicide attempt earlier this year, will attend the space shuttle launch of her astronaut husband Mark Kelly.
Kelly is the commander of the SMS-134 mission on the Endeavour space shuttle, which will be making its final trip into space. The Endeavour is the second to last shuttle for the space shuttle program, which began over 30 years ago. After various delays nearly totaling a month, the Endeavour launch is finally set to take place on Monday May 16.
Giffords office said she'd be attending the launch, even while she recovers from a horrific attempt at her life back in January. NASA will provide Giffords' transportation to Florida, where she will not meet with the media and will watch the launch in private.
After the launch, members of Giffords' staff will meet with the media in the Kennedy Space Center News Center to discuss the event and her reaction to her husband's latest mission.
Meanwhile, NASA has said all systems are go for the launch and there should not be any further additional delays. The weather for Monday calls for 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions a launch time. There may be storm disturbance around the time the rotating service structure is to be rolled back, scheduled to begin at noon on Sunday, but other than that, NASA looks good to go.
SMS-134 will cap a nice career for Endeavour. Since its first mission, Endeavour has traveled 116,372,930 miles, spent 283 days in space and has had a total of 4,423 orbits. Over the years, it has housed many of space related milestones.
It was the first to include four spacewalks, and then the first to include five. One of its first missions, STS-67, set a length record almost two full days longer than any shuttle mission before it. Its airlock is the only one to have seen three spacewalkers exit through it for a single spacewalk. And in its cargo bay is where the International Space Station first started to be constructed.
During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. After it finishes up, NASA will conclude the space shuttle program with the Atlantis. Following that, the three remaining space shuttles and a fourth prototype will head to museums across the country.
Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was nearly slain down in an attempted homicide attempt earlier this year, will attend the space shuttle launch of her astronaut husband Mark Kelly.
Kelly is the commander of the SMS-134 mission on the Endeavour space shuttle, which will be making its final trip into space. The Endeavour is the second to last shuttle for the space shuttle program, which began over 30 years ago. After various delays nearly totaling a month, the Endeavour launch is finally set to take place on Monday May 16.
Giffords office said she'd be attending the launch, even while she recovers from a horrific attempt at her life back in January. NASA will provide Giffords' transportation to Florida, where she will not meet with the media and will watch the launch in private.
After the launch, members of Giffords' staff will meet with the media in the Kennedy Space Center News Center to discuss the event and her reaction to her husband's latest mission.
Meanwhile, NASA has said all systems are go for the launch and there should not be any further additional delays. The weather for Monday calls for 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions a launch time. There may be storm disturbance around the time the rotating service structure is to be rolled back, scheduled to begin at noon on Sunday, but other than that, NASA looks good to go.
SMS-134 will cap a nice career for Endeavour. Since its first mission, Endeavour has traveled 116,372,930 miles, spent 283 days in space and has had a total of 4,423 orbits. Over the years, it has housed many of space related milestones.
It was the first to include four spacewalks, and then the first to include five. One of its first missions, STS-67, set a length record almost two full days longer than any shuttle mission before it. Its airlock is the only one to have seen three spacewalkers exit through it for a single spacewalk. And in its cargo bay is where the International Space Station first started to be constructed.
During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. After it finishes up, NASA will conclude the space shuttle program with the Atlantis. Following that, the three remaining space shuttles and a fourth prototype will head to museums across the country.
No, you are not losing your mind
If there were posts here yesterday that you read, which are not here today, it's because...they're not here.
Blogger.com, the platform that hosts this blog, was down for much of yesterday afternoon and all night...just coming up now (11 am mountain time.) And all posts made in the last couple of days have disappeared.
Supposedly, those posts will be restored. I'll give them a day to do so, and if not, will re-post them tomorrow.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Blogger.com, the platform that hosts this blog, was down for much of yesterday afternoon and all night...just coming up now (11 am mountain time.) And all posts made in the last couple of days have disappeared.
Supposedly, those posts will be restored. I'll give them a day to do so, and if not, will re-post them tomorrow.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Washington Worries China Will Challenge U.S. Dominance in Space
Space.com: Washington Worries China Will Challenge U.S. Dominance in Space
U.S. power brokers aren't sure how to handle China's rapidly expanding space capabilities, according to testimony at a congressional hearing yesterday (May 11).
China recently demonstrated the ability to destroy satellites on orbit, and it's ramping up plans for a space station and a possible manned lunar landing in the next decade or so. At a hearing on "The Implications of China's Military and Civil Space Programs," a range of experts discussed what these developments might mean for the United States.
While opinions and viewpoints varied, a few key themes emerged, including the need to engage with China to better understand just what the nation hopes to achieve in space.
"There's still a lack of clear understanding of what Beijing's goals are, and how we interact with those," Ben Baseley-Walker of the Secure World Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to space sustainability, told SPACE.com. Baseley-Walker attended the hearing, which took place at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
China's space capabilities ramping up
In 2007, China destroyed one of its own satellites on orbit during an anti-satellite test, showcasing an ability that makes the United States and other nations nervous. Since then, the country has conducted other tests advancing its military space capabilities, including a 2010 missile-interception demonstration.
Beijing is also ramping up its human spaceflight program. In 2003, China became the third nation to launch a person into space, and it has flown several manned missions since.
The country also hopes to build a large space station between 2015 and 2022, according to hearing panelist Alanna Krolikowski, a visiting scholar at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute.
And, beyond that, China appears to be gearing up for a manned lunar landing. The nation's human spaceflight program aims to complete an in-depth concept study on the subject by about 2020, Krolikowski said at the hearing.
These developments have some politicians and policy experts worried. They think China may be positioning itself to challenge outright the United States' dominance in space, which currently gives America a huge advantage on the battlefield.
“What concerns me most about the Chinese space program is that, unlike the U.S., it is being led by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)," Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) testified at the hearing. "There is no reason to believe that the PLA’s space program will be any more benign than the PLA’s recent military posture."
Is Beijing a threat?
The White House has recently stated a willingness to work with China on expensive, difficult space projects, such as a manned mission to Mars. Wolf thinks this is a bad idea, citing the potential threat China poses as well as its abysmal human-rights record.
"The U.S. has no business cooperating with the PLA to help develop its space program," said Wolf, who chairs the commerce, justice and science subcommittee of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
However, other panelists cited the possible benefits to the United States of such cooperation, which range from expanding opportunities for American businesses to increasing space security. If the United States thinks China can become a "normal" spacefaring country, keen to exploit space commercially, collaboration is probably a good idea, according to Krolikowski.
"As China invests in and derives greater benefit from space, it will acquire the same stake in creating a predictable, stable, safe and sustainable space environment that the U.S., Canada, Japan and European and other countries already share," Krolikowski said.
Cooperation and engagement could also help reveal China's goals for space. Does China, for example, hope to dominate military space aggressively in the near future, or is it concerned more about self-defense?
"While China’s capabilities in space are known to U.S. observers, its intentions are not," Krolikowski said.
According to Baseley-Walker, panelists stressed the importance of getting to the bottom of those intentions. It's difficult to draw up and implement effective policy, after all, without a basic understanding of where China is coming from, and where it's going.
U.S. power brokers aren't sure how to handle China's rapidly expanding space capabilities, according to testimony at a congressional hearing yesterday (May 11).
China recently demonstrated the ability to destroy satellites on orbit, and it's ramping up plans for a space station and a possible manned lunar landing in the next decade or so. At a hearing on "The Implications of China's Military and Civil Space Programs," a range of experts discussed what these developments might mean for the United States.
While opinions and viewpoints varied, a few key themes emerged, including the need to engage with China to better understand just what the nation hopes to achieve in space.
"There's still a lack of clear understanding of what Beijing's goals are, and how we interact with those," Ben Baseley-Walker of the Secure World Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to space sustainability, told SPACE.com. Baseley-Walker attended the hearing, which took place at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
China's space capabilities ramping up
In 2007, China destroyed one of its own satellites on orbit during an anti-satellite test, showcasing an ability that makes the United States and other nations nervous. Since then, the country has conducted other tests advancing its military space capabilities, including a 2010 missile-interception demonstration.
Beijing is also ramping up its human spaceflight program. In 2003, China became the third nation to launch a person into space, and it has flown several manned missions since.
The country also hopes to build a large space station between 2015 and 2022, according to hearing panelist Alanna Krolikowski, a visiting scholar at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute.
And, beyond that, China appears to be gearing up for a manned lunar landing. The nation's human spaceflight program aims to complete an in-depth concept study on the subject by about 2020, Krolikowski said at the hearing.
These developments have some politicians and policy experts worried. They think China may be positioning itself to challenge outright the United States' dominance in space, which currently gives America a huge advantage on the battlefield.
“What concerns me most about the Chinese space program is that, unlike the U.S., it is being led by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)," Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) testified at the hearing. "There is no reason to believe that the PLA’s space program will be any more benign than the PLA’s recent military posture."
Is Beijing a threat?
The White House has recently stated a willingness to work with China on expensive, difficult space projects, such as a manned mission to Mars. Wolf thinks this is a bad idea, citing the potential threat China poses as well as its abysmal human-rights record.
"The U.S. has no business cooperating with the PLA to help develop its space program," said Wolf, who chairs the commerce, justice and science subcommittee of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
However, other panelists cited the possible benefits to the United States of such cooperation, which range from expanding opportunities for American businesses to increasing space security. If the United States thinks China can become a "normal" spacefaring country, keen to exploit space commercially, collaboration is probably a good idea, according to Krolikowski.
"As China invests in and derives greater benefit from space, it will acquire the same stake in creating a predictable, stable, safe and sustainable space environment that the U.S., Canada, Japan and European and other countries already share," Krolikowski said.
Cooperation and engagement could also help reveal China's goals for space. Does China, for example, hope to dominate military space aggressively in the near future, or is it concerned more about self-defense?
"While China’s capabilities in space are known to U.S. observers, its intentions are not," Krolikowski said.
According to Baseley-Walker, panelists stressed the importance of getting to the bottom of those intentions. It's difficult to draw up and implement effective policy, after all, without a basic understanding of where China is coming from, and where it's going.
NASA Plans Test of New Moon Lander Morpheus
FoxNews: NASA Plans Test of New Moon Lander Morpheus
squat, insectlike contraption is set to fly untethered for the first time soon in a NASA test of technologies designed to take humans to the moon, Mars or beyond.
The unmanned Morpheus lander, named after the Greek god of dreams, was built at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston using cutting-edge technologies that the agency hopes will one day enable manned missions to another planet or even an asteroid. The vehicle, about the size of an SUV, could carry about 1,100 pounds (500 kg) of cargo to the moon.
Not only are the technologies onboard innovative, but NASA's process of building the lander is, too.
"Part of what this project set out to do was to question the way we've done things," Project Morpheus manager Matt Ondler told SPACE.com. "We purposefully set out to see if we could do things faster and cheaper, leveraging off the work that was already done."
So far, the project has cost NASA about $4 million over the last 18 months, not counting the NASA work force, which is accounted for under NASA's general overhead.
Cutting-edge tech
One of the primary technologies being tested on the lander is a system intended to spot dangerous craters or boulders that could make a landing spot on another planet unsafe. The so-called Automated Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology — or ALHAT — uses lasers to image the surface of a body and identify hazards as it flies over.
Previous missions, such as the Apollo 11 moon landing, have taught us that such a capability could be critical. When Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were nearing the lunar surface on that first moon trip, they almost ran out of fuel while looking for a suitable spot to touch down.
Another innovation being tested on Morpheus is a lighter, safer mix of fuel.
The landing machine is powered by liquid oxygen and methane, which NASA says is a safer alternative to traditional spacecraft propellants. Not only that, but it's 10 to 20 times less expensive and weighs significantly less — an important distinction when every pound of weight carried into space requires an additional 15 pounds of fuel to get it there.
Such a fuel mix might also be renewable at the spacecraft's destination. Engineers are already working on methods to extract oxygen from the lunar surface, and methane is known to exist in the atmosphere on Mars.
Tethered tests
Morpheus has already undergone several tests while tethered to a crane so it doesn't get out of control. But these haven't always gone quite as planned.
One test on April 27, for example, had to be aborted after the lander started swinging wildly. In NASA parlance, "shortly after ignition the vehicle pitched over and control authority was lost," according to a NASA Morpheus blog.
But the Morpheus researchers aren't discouraged, and are gearing up for the machine's biggest test to date: an untethered, free flight up to an altitude of 100 feet (30 meters), then over 100 feet to the west, then a landing.
The exact date for this test isn't yet set, but mission managers expect it to occur sometime in June.
"There are still a few more issues that we're working through," Ondler said. "We want to have two complete tethered flights in a row with no anomalies before we go untethered."
The test will be a significant milestone for the Morpheus project.
"It's sort of like taking the training wheels off," Ondler said. "If we've done everything right, it should work just fine, but there's no safety net to catch it if things don't go right."
The project involves about 30 mostly full-time workers, plus another 30 part-time employees at Johnson Space Center, Ondler said.
"For a lot of the people here, this is why they came to NASA," Ondler said. "It was to build stuff, to light engines off and fly things, so I think it's been very exciting for people who've had a chance to work on it."
Ondler said the work on Morpheus is going so well, NASA hopes to expand the development model to more projects throughout the agency, both at Johnson Space Center and other NASA centers around the country.
"Projects like Morpheus are invigorating and infectious," said Steve Altemus, director of Johnson's Engineering Directorate, in a statement. "And they help us find better and cheaper ways to do things. To challenge our existing processes. To innovate."
Endeavour Crew Arrives at Space Center for Monday Launch
PC Magazine: Endeavour Crew Arrives at Space Center for Monday Launch
The space shuttle Endeavour crew has returned to Kennedy Space Center in preparation for Monday's re-scheduled launch.
The six astronauts for the mission known as STS-134 arrived in Florida via a shuttle training aircraft at 9am Eastern.
"It's great to be back," shuttle commander Mark Kelly said in a statement. "We really appreciate all the hard work by the team that's worked over the last couple of weeks to get shuttle Endeavour ready."
"I can't think of a more perfect way to spend my birthday then to come here with my crew a get ready to fly Endeavour next week," said Endeavour's pilot Greg H. Johnson.
Later today, Kelly and Johnson will practice landings in the Shuttle Training Aircraft, which are Gulfstream II jets modified to handle like a space shuttle, according to NASA.
Mission specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and the European Space Agency's Roberto Vittori will also travel to the International Space Station via Endeavour for the 14-day mission. Endeavour is scheduled to depart at 8:56am Monday, May 16. Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters has forecasted a 70 percent chance of having good weather.
Endeavour was initially scheduled to launch on Friday, April 29, but just prior to the scheduled 3:47pm launch, NASA discovered that Endeavour's auxiliary power unit had failed. It was so late in the game that the mission's astronauts were already en route to the shuttle. NASA quickly shut things down, and upon further inspection, discovered a problem with a box of switches that controls power feeds, known as a load control assembly-2 (LCA-2). NASA removed the malfunctioning box last week and replaced it with a new one.
Among the items Endeavour will carry to the ISS is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS). It will be used to measure cosmic rays to gain a better understanding of cosmic radiation; a challenge for long-duration spaceflight. It might also help uncover the mysteries involved in dark matter or missing antimatter, NASA said. The 15,000-pound AMS is expected to be operational for the rest of the station's life; at least 10 years.
The space shuttle Endeavour crew has returned to Kennedy Space Center in preparation for Monday's re-scheduled launch.
The six astronauts for the mission known as STS-134 arrived in Florida via a shuttle training aircraft at 9am Eastern.
"It's great to be back," shuttle commander Mark Kelly said in a statement. "We really appreciate all the hard work by the team that's worked over the last couple of weeks to get shuttle Endeavour ready."
"I can't think of a more perfect way to spend my birthday then to come here with my crew a get ready to fly Endeavour next week," said Endeavour's pilot Greg H. Johnson.
Later today, Kelly and Johnson will practice landings in the Shuttle Training Aircraft, which are Gulfstream II jets modified to handle like a space shuttle, according to NASA.
Mission specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and the European Space Agency's Roberto Vittori will also travel to the International Space Station via Endeavour for the 14-day mission. Endeavour is scheduled to depart at 8:56am Monday, May 16. Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters has forecasted a 70 percent chance of having good weather.
Endeavour was initially scheduled to launch on Friday, April 29, but just prior to the scheduled 3:47pm launch, NASA discovered that Endeavour's auxiliary power unit had failed. It was so late in the game that the mission's astronauts were already en route to the shuttle. NASA quickly shut things down, and upon further inspection, discovered a problem with a box of switches that controls power feeds, known as a load control assembly-2 (LCA-2). NASA removed the malfunctioning box last week and replaced it with a new one.
Among the items Endeavour will carry to the ISS is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS). It will be used to measure cosmic rays to gain a better understanding of cosmic radiation; a challenge for long-duration spaceflight. It might also help uncover the mysteries involved in dark matter or missing antimatter, NASA said. The 15,000-pound AMS is expected to be operational for the rest of the station's life; at least 10 years.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Ugly Truth of Space Junk: Orbital Debris Problem to Triple by 2030
Space.com: Ugly Truth of Space Junk: Orbital Debris Problem to Triple by 2030
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Dealing with the decades of detritus from using outer space -- human-made orbital debris -- is a global concern, but some experts are now questioning the feasibility of the wide range of "solutions" sketched out to grapple with high-speed space litter.
What may be shaping up is an "abandon in place" posture for certain orbital altitudes -- an outlook that flags the messy message resulting from countless bits of orbital refuse.
In a recent conference here, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, relayed his worries about rising amounts of human-made space junk.
"The traffic is increasing. We've now got over 50 nations that are participants in the space environment," Shelton said last month during the Space Foundation’s 27th National Space Symposium. Given existing space situational awareness capabilities, over 20,000 objects are now tracked. [Worst Space Debris Events of All Time]
"We catalog those routinely and keep track of them. That number is projected to triple by 2030, and much of that is improved sensors, but some of that is increased traffic," Shelton said. "Then if you think about it, there are probably 10 times more objects in space than we're able to track with our sensor capability today. Those objects are untrackable … yet they are lethal to our space systems -- to military space systems, civil space systems, commercial -- no one’s immune from the threats that are on orbit today, just due to the traffic in space."
Tough neighborhood
From a probability point of view, General Shelton added, smaller satellites, more debris, more debris is going to run into more debris, creating more debris. [Video: Fragmentation: Growing Threat of Space Junk]
"It may be a pretty tough neighborhood," Shelton continued, in low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous Earth orbit "in the not too distant future."
When asked if the U.S. Air Force plans on funding space debris mitigation capability, Shelton responded: "We haven’t found a way yet that is affordable and gives us any hope for mitigating space debris. The best we can do, we believe, is to minimize debris as we go forward with our operations. As we think about how we launch things, as we deploy satellites, minimizing debris is absolutely essential and we’re trying to convince other nations of that imperative as well."
Shelton said that, unfortunately, with the duration of most things on orbit, "you get to live with the debris problem for many, many years and in some cases decades. So minimizing debris is important to us and it should be to other nations as well."
Point of no return
The concern over orbital debris has been building for several reasons, said Marshall Kaplan, an orbital debris expert within the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
In Kaplan's view, spacefaring nations have passed the point of "no return," with the accumulation of debris objects in low-Earth orbits steadily building over the past 50 years.
Add to the clutter, the leftovers of China’s anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2007.
"The fact that this single event increased the number of debris objects by roughly 25 percent was not as important as the location of the intercept. The event took place at an altitude of 865 kilometers, right in the middle of the most congested region of low-orbiting satellites," Kaplan pointed out.
Toss into the brew the collision of an Iridium satellite with an expired Russian Cosmos spacecraft in February 2009 -- at an altitude similar to that of China’s ASAT test.
As a result of 50 years of launching satellites and these two events, the altitude band from about 435 miles (700 km) to a little over 800 miles (1,300 km) has accumulated possibly millions of debris objects ranging from a few millimeters to a few meters, Kaplan said.
Complex and very expensive
"The buildup of debris is not a naturally reversible process. If we are to clean up space, it will certainly be complex and very expensive. If we continue, as we have, to use these very popular orbits in near-Earth space, the density of debris and collision events will surely increase," Kaplan told SPACE.com.
The good news is that no immediate action is necessary in terms of removing debris objects, Kaplan advised, as experts estimate that the situation will not go unstable anytime soon.
"But, when it does, operational satellites will be destroyed at an alarming rate, and they cannot be replaced. We must prepare for this seemingly inevitable event," Kaplan said. While there are many options for debris removal that have been proposed, he feels that none are sensible.
"Barring the discovery of a disruptive technology within the next decade or so, there will be no practical removal solution," Kaplan added. "We simply lack the technology to economically clean up space." [Lasers Could Zap Space Junk Clear From Satellites]
For Kaplan, the issue of dealing with orbital debris will become dire.
"The proliferation is irreversible. Any cleanup would be too expensive. Given this insight, it is unlikely spacefaring nations are going to do anything significant about cleaning up space," Kaplan said. "The fact is that we really can't do anything. We can't afford it. We don't have the technology. We don't have the cooperation. Nobody wants to pay for it. Space debris cleanup is a 'growth industry,' but there are no customers. In addition, it is politically untenable."
All that being said, can anything be done? Kaplan says he can imagine the future … and things don't look pretty.
"There is a good chance that we may have to eventually abandon all active satellites in currently used orbits," Kaplan said. "One possible scenario for the future is that we may phase out this generation of spacecraft while replacing them with a brand-new infrastructure of low-orbiting constellations of small satellites, each of which partially contributes to collecting desired data or making communications links."
These constellations could be placed below 370 miles (600 km), thus avoiding the debris issue.
"Such a new infrastructure could be developed over the next 20, 30 or 40 years," Kaplan said. "We should have plenty of time to make the transition, so let's use it wisely. We all caused this problem … there is no doubt about that. And, nobody will claim somebody else did it."
Meanwhile, outer space is still "big" … but it’s getting smaller.
"The question is: when is it going to get too small? That’s the real question, and we don't know," Kaplan said. "Nobody is really going to yell uncle until we have some more serious collisions. That could happen anytime or it could happen in 20 years, we just don't know."
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Dealing with the decades of detritus from using outer space -- human-made orbital debris -- is a global concern, but some experts are now questioning the feasibility of the wide range of "solutions" sketched out to grapple with high-speed space litter.
What may be shaping up is an "abandon in place" posture for certain orbital altitudes -- an outlook that flags the messy message resulting from countless bits of orbital refuse.
In a recent conference here, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, relayed his worries about rising amounts of human-made space junk.
"The traffic is increasing. We've now got over 50 nations that are participants in the space environment," Shelton said last month during the Space Foundation’s 27th National Space Symposium. Given existing space situational awareness capabilities, over 20,000 objects are now tracked. [Worst Space Debris Events of All Time]
"We catalog those routinely and keep track of them. That number is projected to triple by 2030, and much of that is improved sensors, but some of that is increased traffic," Shelton said. "Then if you think about it, there are probably 10 times more objects in space than we're able to track with our sensor capability today. Those objects are untrackable … yet they are lethal to our space systems -- to military space systems, civil space systems, commercial -- no one’s immune from the threats that are on orbit today, just due to the traffic in space."
Tough neighborhood
From a probability point of view, General Shelton added, smaller satellites, more debris, more debris is going to run into more debris, creating more debris. [Video: Fragmentation: Growing Threat of Space Junk]
"It may be a pretty tough neighborhood," Shelton continued, in low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous Earth orbit "in the not too distant future."
When asked if the U.S. Air Force plans on funding space debris mitigation capability, Shelton responded: "We haven’t found a way yet that is affordable and gives us any hope for mitigating space debris. The best we can do, we believe, is to minimize debris as we go forward with our operations. As we think about how we launch things, as we deploy satellites, minimizing debris is absolutely essential and we’re trying to convince other nations of that imperative as well."
Shelton said that, unfortunately, with the duration of most things on orbit, "you get to live with the debris problem for many, many years and in some cases decades. So minimizing debris is important to us and it should be to other nations as well."
Point of no return
The concern over orbital debris has been building for several reasons, said Marshall Kaplan, an orbital debris expert within the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
In Kaplan's view, spacefaring nations have passed the point of "no return," with the accumulation of debris objects in low-Earth orbits steadily building over the past 50 years.
Add to the clutter, the leftovers of China’s anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2007.
"The fact that this single event increased the number of debris objects by roughly 25 percent was not as important as the location of the intercept. The event took place at an altitude of 865 kilometers, right in the middle of the most congested region of low-orbiting satellites," Kaplan pointed out.
Toss into the brew the collision of an Iridium satellite with an expired Russian Cosmos spacecraft in February 2009 -- at an altitude similar to that of China’s ASAT test.
As a result of 50 years of launching satellites and these two events, the altitude band from about 435 miles (700 km) to a little over 800 miles (1,300 km) has accumulated possibly millions of debris objects ranging from a few millimeters to a few meters, Kaplan said.
Complex and very expensive
"The buildup of debris is not a naturally reversible process. If we are to clean up space, it will certainly be complex and very expensive. If we continue, as we have, to use these very popular orbits in near-Earth space, the density of debris and collision events will surely increase," Kaplan told SPACE.com.
The good news is that no immediate action is necessary in terms of removing debris objects, Kaplan advised, as experts estimate that the situation will not go unstable anytime soon.
"But, when it does, operational satellites will be destroyed at an alarming rate, and they cannot be replaced. We must prepare for this seemingly inevitable event," Kaplan said. While there are many options for debris removal that have been proposed, he feels that none are sensible.
"Barring the discovery of a disruptive technology within the next decade or so, there will be no practical removal solution," Kaplan added. "We simply lack the technology to economically clean up space." [Lasers Could Zap Space Junk Clear From Satellites]
For Kaplan, the issue of dealing with orbital debris will become dire.
"The proliferation is irreversible. Any cleanup would be too expensive. Given this insight, it is unlikely spacefaring nations are going to do anything significant about cleaning up space," Kaplan said. "The fact is that we really can't do anything. We can't afford it. We don't have the technology. We don't have the cooperation. Nobody wants to pay for it. Space debris cleanup is a 'growth industry,' but there are no customers. In addition, it is politically untenable."
All that being said, can anything be done? Kaplan says he can imagine the future … and things don't look pretty.
"There is a good chance that we may have to eventually abandon all active satellites in currently used orbits," Kaplan said. "One possible scenario for the future is that we may phase out this generation of spacecraft while replacing them with a brand-new infrastructure of low-orbiting constellations of small satellites, each of which partially contributes to collecting desired data or making communications links."
These constellations could be placed below 370 miles (600 km), thus avoiding the debris issue.
"Such a new infrastructure could be developed over the next 20, 30 or 40 years," Kaplan said. "We should have plenty of time to make the transition, so let's use it wisely. We all caused this problem … there is no doubt about that. And, nobody will claim somebody else did it."
Meanwhile, outer space is still "big" … but it’s getting smaller.
"The question is: when is it going to get too small? That’s the real question, and we don't know," Kaplan said. "Nobody is really going to yell uncle until we have some more serious collisions. That could happen anytime or it could happen in 20 years, we just don't know."
US Military Launches New Missile Warning System Into Space
Fox News: US Military Launches New Missile Warning System Into Space
A new U.S. military satellite launched into orbit Saturday (May 7) on a mission to enhance the country's missile defense and detection capabilities.
The satellite blasted off atop an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket from a seaside pad here at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT). The mission had been delayed one day due to bad weather.
The Atlas 5 rocket carried the first satellite in the U.S. military's planned four-satellite Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS). The satellites, the first of which is called GEO-1, will replace the military's Defense Support Program satellites that are currently in orbit.
"Today, we launched the next generation missile warning capability," Air Force Space Command commander Gen. William Shelton said in a statement. "It's taken a lot of hard work by the government-industry team and we couldn't be more proud. We look forward to this satellite providing superb capabilities for many years to come." [Video: U.S. Defense Satellites Watch Entire World]
The rocket launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) oversaw Saturday's successful liftoff. The GEO-1 satellite rode atop an Atlas 5 configuration that did not use solid rocket boosters.
U.S. military's latest space sentinel
The $1.3 billion GEO-1 satellite is expected to provide the military with advanced warning of potential incoming threats while they are on the battlefield. It will circle the Earth in a geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers) above its coverage area.
"It's a great day for United Launch Alliance, we have been entrusted to launch the most important missions for this country - be it for NASA, the military or for the private sector," said ULA spokesman Chris Chavez. "This is our 50th launch overall, our 26th using the Atlas 5 launch vehicle and our fifth launch this year already."
This new satellite will give better early warning of incoming missiles. GEO-1 will also provide related information such as intelligence-gathering, missile defense and situational awareness for military personnel.
"SBIRS GEO-1 represents the dawn of a new era in overhead persistent infrared surveillance that will greatly improve our national security for years to come," said Brig. Gen. (select) Roger W. Teague, the U.S. Air Force's Infrared Space Systems Directorate director, in a statement.
The satellite can track multiple areas and potential threats at once as opposed to the system currently in orbit. The satellite utilizes heat-sensitive technology to perform its mission and has an expected design life of about 12 years.
"This launch represents the culmination of hard work and dedication from an elite team of individuals," said Michael Friedman a spokesman for Lockheed-Martin, which built the satellite. "Together we've built and launched a spacecraft that will protect citizens for years to come a spacecraft the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin SBIRS team knows the nation will be very proud of."
Space surveillance for missile defense
The SBIRS program is viewed as one of the nation's highest priority space security programs as it is expected to provide global, constant infrared surveillance that will accomplish a number of national defense requirements, program officials said. The system is expected to provide accurate early warning of incoming missiles to the U.S. President, Secretary of Defense and military commanders in the field. [Most Destructive Space Weapons Concepts]
GEO-1 will compare the heat signature of potential targets (in this case the heat from a missile's exhaust) against the ambient background temperature and relay its observations to its control team.
The launch had been originally schedule to take place on Friday, but intermittent rain and cumulous clouds thwarted the attempt. Weather was not a concern at the time of launch with completely clear skies in the Cape Canaveral area.
"The Atlas 5 has a 100 percent success rate, we simply cannot ask more from this launch vehicle,” said U.S. Air Force spokeswoman Glorimar Rodriguez. “This mission was number 26 for the Atlas 5 rocket; again and again the launch vehicle performs flawlessly."
A new U.S. military satellite launched into orbit Saturday (May 7) on a mission to enhance the country's missile defense and detection capabilities.
The satellite blasted off atop an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket from a seaside pad here at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT). The mission had been delayed one day due to bad weather.
The Atlas 5 rocket carried the first satellite in the U.S. military's planned four-satellite Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS). The satellites, the first of which is called GEO-1, will replace the military's Defense Support Program satellites that are currently in orbit.
"Today, we launched the next generation missile warning capability," Air Force Space Command commander Gen. William Shelton said in a statement. "It's taken a lot of hard work by the government-industry team and we couldn't be more proud. We look forward to this satellite providing superb capabilities for many years to come." [Video: U.S. Defense Satellites Watch Entire World]
The rocket launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) oversaw Saturday's successful liftoff. The GEO-1 satellite rode atop an Atlas 5 configuration that did not use solid rocket boosters.
U.S. military's latest space sentinel
The $1.3 billion GEO-1 satellite is expected to provide the military with advanced warning of potential incoming threats while they are on the battlefield. It will circle the Earth in a geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers) above its coverage area.
"It's a great day for United Launch Alliance, we have been entrusted to launch the most important missions for this country - be it for NASA, the military or for the private sector," said ULA spokesman Chris Chavez. "This is our 50th launch overall, our 26th using the Atlas 5 launch vehicle and our fifth launch this year already."
This new satellite will give better early warning of incoming missiles. GEO-1 will also provide related information such as intelligence-gathering, missile defense and situational awareness for military personnel.
"SBIRS GEO-1 represents the dawn of a new era in overhead persistent infrared surveillance that will greatly improve our national security for years to come," said Brig. Gen. (select) Roger W. Teague, the U.S. Air Force's Infrared Space Systems Directorate director, in a statement.
The satellite can track multiple areas and potential threats at once as opposed to the system currently in orbit. The satellite utilizes heat-sensitive technology to perform its mission and has an expected design life of about 12 years.
"This launch represents the culmination of hard work and dedication from an elite team of individuals," said Michael Friedman a spokesman for Lockheed-Martin, which built the satellite. "Together we've built and launched a spacecraft that will protect citizens for years to come a spacecraft the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin SBIRS team knows the nation will be very proud of."
Space surveillance for missile defense
The SBIRS program is viewed as one of the nation's highest priority space security programs as it is expected to provide global, constant infrared surveillance that will accomplish a number of national defense requirements, program officials said. The system is expected to provide accurate early warning of incoming missiles to the U.S. President, Secretary of Defense and military commanders in the field. [Most Destructive Space Weapons Concepts]
GEO-1 will compare the heat signature of potential targets (in this case the heat from a missile's exhaust) against the ambient background temperature and relay its observations to its control team.
The launch had been originally schedule to take place on Friday, but intermittent rain and cumulous clouds thwarted the attempt. Weather was not a concern at the time of launch with completely clear skies in the Cape Canaveral area.
"The Atlas 5 has a 100 percent success rate, we simply cannot ask more from this launch vehicle,” said U.S. Air Force spokeswoman Glorimar Rodriguez. “This mission was number 26 for the Atlas 5 rocket; again and again the launch vehicle performs flawlessly."
Friday, May 6, 2011
Want to Fly Around the Moon? Commercial Spaceship Gets Another Seat
PC Magazine: Want to Fly Around the Moon? Commercial Spaceship Gets Another Seat
Room for one more? Virginia-based Space Adventures announced Thursday that it will add another seat to a Soyuz spacecraft that will take space tourists into low-Earth orbit by 2015.
Working with Rocket Space Corporation Energia, Space Adventures will add a second habitation module to the Soyuz TMA lunar complex, which will take those with (a lot) of extra cash around the moon.
"Space Adventures will once again grace the pages of aerospace history, when the first private circumlunar mission launches. We have sold one of the two seats for this flight and anticipate that the launch will occur in 2015," Richard Garriott, vice chairman of Space Adventures, said in a statement. "Having flown on the Soyuz, I can attest to how comfortable the spacecraft is, but the addition of the second habitation module will only make the flight that more enjoyable."
About that price. Space Adventures Tom Shelley told Space.com that its trips to the International Space Station, which normally take one person at a time, can set someone back between $20 million and $50 million. The lunar trip, however, could cost up to a whopping $150 million, Shelley said.
Space Adventures has flown seven spaceflight participants on eight missions to the ISS. The company is currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first orbital spaceflight, manned by Dennis Tito (video below).
Space Adventures estimates that by 2020, about 140 people will have been launched into orbital space. That could include private individuals, corporate, university and non-profit researchers, lottery winners, and journalists. Destinations would include the International Space Station, commercial space stations and orbital free-flys, the company said.
"The next 10 years will be critical for the commercial spaceflight industry with new vehicles and destinations coming online," said Eric Anderson, Space Adventures chairman. "But, in order to truly develop the industry and extend the reach of humanity over the course of time, there will need to be breakthrough discoveries made and innovative propulsion systems designed that will bring the solar system into our economic sphere of influence."
In September, Boeing partnered with Space Adventures to sell commercial space flights on the Boeing Crew Space Transportation spacecraft. Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft can fit seven people, and is expected to be operational by 2015. Last year, Boeing received a $50 million grant from NASA to work on commercial transport of space station crew and the development of human spaceflight opportunities. Boeing was one of five companies that received a total of $50 million from the government space agency as part of the stimulus package.
Another company exploring commercial space flight is Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Earlier this week, one of Branson's spaceships completed a re-entry technique known as a "feather" configuration for the first time.
In April, meanwhile, commercial spaceflight company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) unveiled plans for the Falcon Heavy (above), which SpaceX said will be the world's largest rocket.
Room for one more? Virginia-based Space Adventures announced Thursday that it will add another seat to a Soyuz spacecraft that will take space tourists into low-Earth orbit by 2015.
Working with Rocket Space Corporation Energia, Space Adventures will add a second habitation module to the Soyuz TMA lunar complex, which will take those with (a lot) of extra cash around the moon.
"Space Adventures will once again grace the pages of aerospace history, when the first private circumlunar mission launches. We have sold one of the two seats for this flight and anticipate that the launch will occur in 2015," Richard Garriott, vice chairman of Space Adventures, said in a statement. "Having flown on the Soyuz, I can attest to how comfortable the spacecraft is, but the addition of the second habitation module will only make the flight that more enjoyable."
About that price. Space Adventures Tom Shelley told Space.com that its trips to the International Space Station, which normally take one person at a time, can set someone back between $20 million and $50 million. The lunar trip, however, could cost up to a whopping $150 million, Shelley said.
Space Adventures has flown seven spaceflight participants on eight missions to the ISS. The company is currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first orbital spaceflight, manned by Dennis Tito (video below).
Space Adventures estimates that by 2020, about 140 people will have been launched into orbital space. That could include private individuals, corporate, university and non-profit researchers, lottery winners, and journalists. Destinations would include the International Space Station, commercial space stations and orbital free-flys, the company said.
"The next 10 years will be critical for the commercial spaceflight industry with new vehicles and destinations coming online," said Eric Anderson, Space Adventures chairman. "But, in order to truly develop the industry and extend the reach of humanity over the course of time, there will need to be breakthrough discoveries made and innovative propulsion systems designed that will bring the solar system into our economic sphere of influence."
In September, Boeing partnered with Space Adventures to sell commercial space flights on the Boeing Crew Space Transportation spacecraft. Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft can fit seven people, and is expected to be operational by 2015. Last year, Boeing received a $50 million grant from NASA to work on commercial transport of space station crew and the development of human spaceflight opportunities. Boeing was one of five companies that received a total of $50 million from the government space agency as part of the stimulus package.
Another company exploring commercial space flight is Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Earlier this week, one of Branson's spaceships completed a re-entry technique known as a "feather" configuration for the first time.
In April, meanwhile, commercial spaceflight company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) unveiled plans for the Falcon Heavy (above), which SpaceX said will be the world's largest rocket.
Mother's Day in Space: Astronaut Mom Connects With Son From Orbit
FoxNews: Mother's Day in Space: Astronaut Mom Connects With Son From Orbit
Cady Coleman won't be the only mom spending this year's Mother's Day away from her child and family, but she will be higher up than any other.
Coleman is a NASA astronaut who's been living 220 miles above the planet on the International Space Station since December 2010. And, she's the only mom in space for Mother's Day (her five crewmates are all men).
Coleman and her husband Josh have a 10-year-old son.
"I miss them so much and I appreciate them," Coleman told the CBS television show The Talk, speaking recently from space. "It’s a lot of work for them for me to be gone. I'm just hoping that while I'm up here the things that I'll be doing end up being worth it, and I really think they will be."
A mom in space
While Cady Coleman is the only mother in space at the moment, she isn't the first. Many spaceflyers are parents; the first mom to fly to orbit was NASA astronaut Anna Fisher, who flew on the space shuttle Discovery's STS-51A mission in 1984.
Coleman is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and has a Ph.D. in polymer science and engineering. This trip to the International Space Station is her third mission to space, following two stints on the space shuttle Columbia in 1995 and 1999. Coleman is scheduled to return to Earth on May 23 on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft landing in Kazakhstan.
But even when Coleman has both feet on the ground, staying close to her family is never easy.
"My husband lives in Massachusetts, I live in Texas, and I spent the last three years getting ready for the space station, spending about a third of my time in Russia, some in Japan, some in Europe," Coleman said during an educational event for the Women's Academy of Excellence in New York in March. "So I'm already a long-distance marriage person. I think if you have a challenging situation, you just have to figure out what's good for you and not worry about whether other people might think that it's different or not as good. For my husband and I and our son I think it works really great."
Keeping in touch
Coleman admitted that being diligent about communication is the key to staying connected with the people she loves.
"I can call on the phone from here every night," she said. "Certainly I've talked to them, I think every day but three days that I've been here. We do thing like read stories from space, my son and I, and I try to make sure that we talk about all the important things that husbands and wives need to talk about."
Coleman even brought up a stuffed "Hobbes" tiger from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which she carries around the International Space Station to help her son get into the space spirit.
"I bring Hobbes with me to do experiments and I take pictures and send them down to the ground so he understands what I'm doing every day," Coleman said on The Talk.
Coleman is one of six astronauts living on the space station right now. Her crewmate, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency, will be having a more somber Mother's Day after receiving the news that his mother died on Monday (May 2).
The astronauts, along with Mission Control on the ground, all took a moment of silence to honor her Wednesday (May 4) following her funeral.
"We are remembering her by looking at the beautiful view from our cupola of our planet," Nespoli said then. "We are sure she has the same view from where she is now."
Cady Coleman won't be the only mom spending this year's Mother's Day away from her child and family, but she will be higher up than any other.
Coleman is a NASA astronaut who's been living 220 miles above the planet on the International Space Station since December 2010. And, she's the only mom in space for Mother's Day (her five crewmates are all men).
Coleman and her husband Josh have a 10-year-old son.
"I miss them so much and I appreciate them," Coleman told the CBS television show The Talk, speaking recently from space. "It’s a lot of work for them for me to be gone. I'm just hoping that while I'm up here the things that I'll be doing end up being worth it, and I really think they will be."
A mom in space
While Cady Coleman is the only mother in space at the moment, she isn't the first. Many spaceflyers are parents; the first mom to fly to orbit was NASA astronaut Anna Fisher, who flew on the space shuttle Discovery's STS-51A mission in 1984.
Coleman is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and has a Ph.D. in polymer science and engineering. This trip to the International Space Station is her third mission to space, following two stints on the space shuttle Columbia in 1995 and 1999. Coleman is scheduled to return to Earth on May 23 on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft landing in Kazakhstan.
But even when Coleman has both feet on the ground, staying close to her family is never easy.
"My husband lives in Massachusetts, I live in Texas, and I spent the last three years getting ready for the space station, spending about a third of my time in Russia, some in Japan, some in Europe," Coleman said during an educational event for the Women's Academy of Excellence in New York in March. "So I'm already a long-distance marriage person. I think if you have a challenging situation, you just have to figure out what's good for you and not worry about whether other people might think that it's different or not as good. For my husband and I and our son I think it works really great."
Keeping in touch
Coleman admitted that being diligent about communication is the key to staying connected with the people she loves.
"I can call on the phone from here every night," she said. "Certainly I've talked to them, I think every day but three days that I've been here. We do thing like read stories from space, my son and I, and I try to make sure that we talk about all the important things that husbands and wives need to talk about."
Coleman even brought up a stuffed "Hobbes" tiger from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which she carries around the International Space Station to help her son get into the space spirit.
"I bring Hobbes with me to do experiments and I take pictures and send them down to the ground so he understands what I'm doing every day," Coleman said on The Talk.
Coleman is one of six astronauts living on the space station right now. Her crewmate, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency, will be having a more somber Mother's Day after receiving the news that his mother died on Monday (May 2).
The astronauts, along with Mission Control on the ground, all took a moment of silence to honor her Wednesday (May 4) following her funeral.
"We are remembering her by looking at the beautiful view from our cupola of our planet," Nespoli said then. "We are sure she has the same view from where she is now."
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