Local man takes first-hand pride in space program

From The Columbian: Local man takes first-hand pride in space program

Images and keepsakes in Farouk Huneidi’s office reflect four decades of America’s space program.

The program is on pause for a while, after the final space shuttle flight returned Thursday morning to Earth. But the retired NASA engineer can look at the wall next to his desk for reminders of just how far we’ve come.

Inside a frame, there is a small American flag that was aboard Columbia during the very first shuttle flight — STS 1 — in 1981.

A similar flag went into space in 1990 when the Discovery crew deployed the Hubble space telescope.

A framed photograph of a Challenger launch notes Huneidi’s role in the investigation following the1986 accident that killed seven crew members.

Huneidi received another framed photograph for his role in the “Return to Flight” mission in 1988, when Discovery made the first launch following that Challenger disaster.

That’s just a brief portion of space history represented in Farouk and Janette Huneidi’s Salmon Creek home. Two certificates of appreciation on his wall are signed by Huneidi’s first boss — Wernher von Braun, who helped develop the V-2 rockets that killed more than 2,500 people in England during World War II.

U.S. forces whisked von Braun away after the war and the German rocket expert became director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

And several photos of shuttle launches show one of Huneidi’s indelible contributions to the space program, starting with the third shuttle launch and continuing right up to the final shuttle launch on July 8.

He’s the reason the external fuel tanks — the big orange structures that dwarfed the actually shuttle vehicles — were orange.

For the first two missions, those tanks were painted white, he said. But Huneidi told NASA officials that the paint didn’t offer any protection for the orange spray-on foam that insulated each 530,000-gallon fuel tank.

NASA could shave 600 pounds off the weight of the tank by not painting them.

There is a plaque that recognizes Huneidi’s work on the Saturn 5 rocket that put Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969, and a charred piece of heat shield that went to the moon and back.

Looking back recently at his contribution to manned space flight, Huneidi selected one word to summarize his 32-year career.

“Amazing,” the retired thermal engineer said. “Sometimes you’re lucky” to wind up in a job.

Of course, a trip into space would have been pretty good, too.

“Yes,” Huneidi (pronounced hoo-NAY-dee) acknowledged. “I wished that I could go. But my eyesight wasn’t good enough. Astronauts go through a lot of work, and I couldn’t do it.”

Every once in a while, Huneidi was part of a team that shared a little bit of the risk the astronauts faced.

“We did pre-launch checkouts,” he said.

“Our team, the astronauts, and the team that dressed the astronauts were the only people who got to be on the launching pad,” he said.

By way of explaining the risk factor, he showed a vintage photograph of four men, dressed in orange flame-resistant coveralls. Huneidi was the one with the big number 6 on his back.

“If something happened, the number would make it easier to identify you,” Huneidi said.

Don Lips is another retired engineer who played a role in developing the shuttle. Now a part-time Ridgefield resident, he worked for a California company that made flight indicators for shuttles.

“When it took off and landed, they measured the altitude and air speed. I did those sensors,” Lips said.

The shuttle program was capped by its role in building the International Space Station, which NASA calls the most complex engineering and construction project in the world.

“I think it was a real milestone in society,” Lips said of the American space program.

Now it’s in a downward spiral.

“We have friends whose children now are engineers at Huntsville and Kennedy,” Janette Huneidi said.

NASA already is cutting a lot of those jobs, with more layoffs on the way.

“We will lose a lot of brain power,” she said.

But the Huneidis, who moved to Vancouver in 1995 after Farouk’s retirement, have seen ebbs and flows before.

“In the 1960s and early ’70s, there would be a lull between programs,” Janette Huneidi said. “We’d invite guys in the program over for dinner, and they would say, ‘What will we do? This is coming to an end.’

“We will go on,” she said.

Next ISS Crew Prepares For Commercial Freighters

From Aviation Week: Next ISS Crew Prepares For Commercial Freighters

CAPE CANAVERAL — The first International Space Station crew in the post-shuttle era had an additional stop in its training flow — Space Exploration Technologies’ Hawthorne, Calif., facility for familiarization with the company’s Dragon cargo freighter.

Two-time shuttle veteran Dan Burbank, 50, and rookie cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, 39, and Anatoly Ivanishin, 42, are due to launch on Sept. 22 onboard a Russian Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They will join the Expedition 29 crew of NASA astronaut Michael Fossum, 53, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, 47, and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, 38.

The first of NASA’s new commercial cargo ships is expected to make a trial run to the station in December. A successful docking of the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule would clear the way for the company to begin working on its 12-flight, $1.6 billion station cargo resupply missions for NASA in 2012.

Burbank says the crew also received training to handle berthing with NASA’s second cargo resupplier, Orbital Sciences Corp., which expects to debut its Cygnus capsule with a docking at the space station in early 2012, possibly before Burbank and his crewmates return to Earth in mid-March. Orbital Sciences holds a second NASA cargo resupply contract worth $1.9 billion for eight Cygnus flights.

“We’ve got some visiting vehicles that we’re hoping for and looking forward to seeing while we’re onboard [the] space station, one of which at least — hopefully more — will be the first of the commercial resupply ships,” Burbank told reporters July 27.

Both ships will be berthed to the station’s Harmony node with the station’s robotic arm, a maneuver that is very similar to the docking of Japan’s HTV capsules.

“Our operations as far as monitoring the rendezvous, monitoring the vehicles as they come up the R-bar, toward the space station’s nadir, or Earth-facing side, and then how we track and capture them ultimately with the space station robotic arm and then mate them to Node 2 — those are essentially the same,” Burbank says.

Burbank, who will take over command of the station from Fossum in December, and his crewmates also will be onboard during a major upgrade of the station’s avionics software, intended to increase the communications bandwidth as the station shifts into full-time research operations. “Now that assembly is complete, it’s time to actually get our return on the investment,” Burbank says.

What should spaceships look like?

BBC News Magazine: What should spaceships look like?
Generations of schoolchildren, openly, and many adults, perhaps more guardedly, have delighted in fantastical depictions of space travel.

From Star Wars back to 2001: A Space Odyssey and even further back to comic hero Dan Dare and Victorian illustrations for the stories of Jules Verne and HG Wells, the way spaceships should look has been an important issue - before the first rocket booster ever fired.

But the fanciful reputation of sci-fi novels and films aside, the illustration of spacecraft might actually have a realistic place in the design of future vessels.

The line has often been blurred between the realm of the sci-fi artist and the real spacecraft designers.

Often referred to as the father of modern space art, Chesley Bonestell had a significant impact on not only science fiction illustration, but the whole of the American space programme.

German rocket developer and champion of space exploration Dr Wernher von Braun, who was inspired by the works of Verne and Wells, commissioned Bonestell to illustrate his spaceflight concepts in a 1952 issue of Collier's Weekly magazine.

The combination of von Braun's technology and Bonestell's artistic vision made the science come alive for the layman readers. Of course, the tax dollars and votes of those inspired layman readers would be needed to realise ambitious space projects.

The Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists now honours work in the sci-fi and fantasy art industry with its annual Chesley Awards.

Science fiction academic
Harry Lange was a German artist who got his start in military flight manual illustrations and was appointed to lead the future projects section for Nasa. He and his team found themselves illustrating von Braun's ideas to promote his vision of a US space station. Lange ended up as production designer on Stanley Kubrick's 2001.

On the other hand it's hard to imagine the designs of Chris Foss, the subject of a new retrospective book, Hardware: The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss, easily crossing the line into the real world of space travel. With Picasso as an inspiration, Foss created book covers that pioneered a new style of space art, featuring prominently placed gigantic colourful craft in swirling spacescapes.

Marked with mysterious symbols and complex patterns, his illustrations have breathed life into sci-fi writings of everyone from Isaac Asimov to EE "Doc" Smith and AE van Vogt. Foss was also commissioned to do work for Alien, Superman and Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade film version of Dune.

Seeing Kubrick's 2001 made a lasting impression on his work, as did the Cold War years and the bleakness of some of the derelict areas of post-war Britain. "People were really looking for a new kind of explosion," says Foss. "Humans want hope. They want something to believe in."

So is it fanciful to imagine Foss's ships - or those of equally florid artists - being like Bonestell's and infiltrating real design?

Perhaps not if a new age of privately-financed space travel needs to rally support in the same way von Braun and Bonestell did.

The end of the space shuttle programme presents a new challenge for spacecraft engineers and designers - one that could even benefit from collaboration with artists.

With government funding constricted, many will be looking to private investors to lead the future of space vessels.

More and more, the aim of companies, such as Boeing, will be to entice consumers to pay for space travel. Just as airlines have done, they will have to appeal to potential passengers - and investors - in order to establish their brands against the competition.

"An enterprising company seeking to attract government and private passengers might achieve success by offering them spaceships that resembled the unique visions of Chris Foss," says science fiction academic Dr Gary Westfahl.

Exotic design might play a part similar to that of airline insignia - from Alaska Airlines' themed craft to Aer Lingus's shamrocks. The goal is to establish brand recognition and visual appeal.

"Foss made his spaceships beautiful not by streamlining them but by adding bright, decorative colours," says Westfahl.

Some might find it strange that a Nasa worker like Lange could make the jump from a deep space project to Hollywood and end up with Oscar nomination for the art direction on The Empire Strikes Back.

But space is a particularly romanticised part of our vision of exploration, says Dr Eric Rabkin, a professor of English at the University of Michigan who specialises in science fiction.

It's because of the unknown, he says. Trains must go where tracks have previously been laid down and planes have to fly where they can ultimately land.

"Ships are inherently romantic because they can go where no one has before. Ships are associated with freedom and conquest," says Rabkin

Private Spacecraft Plans Landmark Docking With International Space Station

Fox News: Private Spacecraft Plans Landmark Docking With International Space Station

Fly me to the moon? Sure thing.

Private spaceflight company Space Exploration (SpaceX) has received tentative approval from NASA to send its Dragon cargo craft on a landmark first mission to the International Space Station on November 30, which would make it the first private company to dock with the space station.

A successful docking on December 9 would be a dramatic validation of NASA's plan to replace the now-retired space shuttle fleet with cheaper, private vehicles -- though how the space agency would send astronauts to space remains an open question.

The Dragon capsule, one of several vehicles competing to haul cargo for NASA into space, had planned two test missions for this winter. One would gauge the capsule's ability to do a "drive-by" of the space station, where it would approach close enough to test navigation and communication gear. A second mission would test the craft's ability to dock.

But SpaceX is ready now, the company argues. Why not combine the two and hit the milestone earlier?

“We technically have agreed with SpaceX that we want to combine those flights,” William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said at a July 21 media briefing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “We are doing all the planning to go ahead and have those missions combined, but we haven’t given them formal approval yet.”

If approved, SpaceX would deliver cargo to the space station in early December. And if successful, it would validate NASA's plan to replace the shuttle with dramatically cheaper private spacecraft.

SpaceX will charge NASA at least $1.6 billion for 12 cargo shipments to the ISS, or $133 million per flight. The space shuttle costs exceed $1 billion per flight.

SpaceX is not alone, however: Orbital Sciences Corp. also has a contract with NASA to supply cargo ships. And it plans to launch the Cygnus resupply ship into space in February 2012.

David Thompson, chairman and CEO of Orbital Sciences, recently noted that the addition of the final Atlantis flight allowed NASA to stock up on food and other consumables, giving private industry a little wiggle room -- but only a little.

"This most recent space shuttle mission ... was able to stock up the space station with supplies and consumables to buy some time for both us and SpaceX to get our cargo systems operational, but the pressure is on to get both of these delivery systems proven and into service over the course of the next year," Thompson told industry blog Spaceflight Now.

SpaceX's craft consists of two parts: the Falcon 9 rocket, a multistage reusable rocket capable of lifting significant amounts of cargo, and Dragon, a reusable space capsule that will carry the cargo, dock and parachute back to Earth, ultimately splash-landing in the ocean.

The first and second stages of the Falcon 9 rocket for SpaceX's cargo flight are already at the company's Cape Canaveral launch pad. The Dragon spacecraft is due to arrive in August or September, the news site noted.

"We're doing all the planning to go ahead and combine those missions," Gerstenmaier said. "The capsule is being designed that way and the software is being built that way, and we're just kind of waiting for the right formal time where we collectively agree that this is the right thing to go forward."

A half-century of America sending Americans into space came to an end July 21, when space shuttle Atlantis became the final shuttle to touch down from space.

"Job well done, America," mission control told Atlantis pilot Doug Hurley and the thousands watching and listening to the landing in the pre-dawn dark. Russian space agency Roskosmos used the occasion to give a nod to America's contributions -- and signal the beginning of the era of its spaceships instead.

"From today, the era of the Soyuz has started in manned space flight, the era of reliability," Roskomos said.

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. may see things differently.

Largest Ever Water Reservoir Discovered in Space

International Business Times: Largest Ever Water Reservoir Discovered in Space
Astronomers have found a massive water vapor cloud, floating around a black hole in the universe, marking the largest discovery of water -- anywhere.

The reservoir is gigantic, holding 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth's oceans, residing 10 billion light years away.

"Since astronomers expected water vapor to be present even in the early universe, the discovery of water is not itself a surprise," the Carnegie Institution, one of the groups behind the findings, said.

The water cloud was found to be in the central regions of a faraway quasar.

"Quasars contain massive black holes that steadily consuming a surrounding disk of gas and dust; as it eats, the quasar spews out amounts of energy," the Institution said in its statement.

The quasar where the gigantic water reservoir is located is some 12 billion years old, only 1.6 billion years younger than the Big Bang. It is older than the formation most of the stars in the disk of the Milky Way galaxy.

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The discovery was part of a larger study of the quasar named APM 08279+5255, where the black hole is 20 billion times greater than the sun. There researched found water vapor around the black hole extending hundreds of light-years in size.

Astronomers expected water vapor to be present even in the early, distant universe, but had not detected it this far away before.

There's water vapor in the Milky Way, although the total amount is 4,000 times less than in the quasar, because most of the Milky Way's water is frozen in ice.

"The environment around this quasar is very unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water. It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times.," said NASA scientist Matt Bradford.

Research on the discovery is slated to be published in a coming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

NASA made their observations starting in 2008, using an instrument called "Z-Spec" at the California Institute of Technology's Submillimeter Observatory, a 33-foot (10-meter) telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Follow-up observations were made with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy (CARMA), an array of radio dishes in the Inyo Mountains of Southern California

Astronomers and scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Institute for Space and Astronautical Science in Japan were involved.

The research team was comprised of a wide array of international talent. The Carnegie Institution's Eric Murphy headed up the study.

Funding for Z-Spec was provided by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Research Corporation and the partner institutions.

'What a Beautiful View': Early Radio Programs About Space Travel

From The Atlantic: 'What a Beautiful View': Early Radio Programs About Space Travel

At 11:29 a.m. EDT on July 8, 2011, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched for the last time from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I sat in awe of the live feed on the NASA website, witnessing the final Shuttle take off with people all over the world. Thirty years after the first Shuttle launched, it is strange to think that we'll no longer see these beautiful and familiar ships lift off and disappear into the sky. There's a little Shuttle-shaped hole in my heart now.

Watching the launch reminded me that Folkways had some space-themed documentary recordings that I had never listened to. Moses Asch made more than folk music records -- being an audiophile, what he really wanted to do was create a catalog of the world's sound. Leaps in sound production quality during the space age made it possible to make scientifically useful recordings that also managed to capture the wonder of the time.

On October 4, 1957, Russian scientists, from somewhere in Russia, fired the rocket that put the first artificial satellite into an orbit going around the world once in about 96 minutes. Man's first artificial satellite is called "Sputnik," Russian for traveler.

So begins Folkways Record FX 6200 Voices of the Satellites!, a recording I never thought I would listen to from beginning to end. Narrated by Professor T.A. Benham of Haverford College and released in 1958, it predates human spaceflight. As a result, it provides a fascinating look at not only the history of space exploration, but the world's reaction to it. The album consists of the recorded radio signals of the first fourteen American and Soviet satellites, as well as the heartbeat (!) of the first creature sent into space, Laika the dog. It's a whole lot of beeping, but the exclamation at the end of the record's title says it all: The fact that people could listen to sounds emitted by "man's first space travelers" was exciting.

Folkways issued another documentary album in 1964 chronicling space exploration called Man in Space: The Story of the Journey (FX 6201). Originally a Voice of America radio program, it tells the story of the the first manned Mercury mission in May 1961 where Alan Shepard became the first American in space. I find the second track of this album especially poetic, so I will present the transcript here in full:

Our story begins on the morning of Friday, May 5th, 1961, at 34 minutes past the hour of ten, at Cape Canaveral in the state of Florida. A man touches a button, the touch ignites the engines of a powerful rocket standing not too far away, gleaming white in the powerful light of the tropical sun. With a roar and a blast of flame, the rocket starts to lift straight up. For the hundreds of men and women who usually work at Cape Canaveral the launching of a rocket has become almost routine, but not in this case. For at the top of the rocket, inside a strange looking vehicle that looks something like a child's toy top, there was a man.

He is at this moment inside the cone shaped capsule perched atop the missile, awaiting the final seconds of the countdown which is already begun. The rocket itself is in full view. It is a gleaming white Mercury Redstone rocket, towering nearly 83 feet into the sunny sky, and is a modified version of the one that helped push America's first satellite into orbit some five years ago.

Holy Moley! Can you imagine? Later on we hear the Mercury Control Center quote Shepard as saying "What a beautiful view." (Bonus! You can see that view here.)

These recordings are gems of the Folkways Collection. Time capsules of the era's fascination with space travel, they were made before we sent a man to the moon, before we landed a rover on Mars, before we sent satellites beyond our orbit and off to the farthest reaches of our solar system.

From satellite beeps to astronaut tweets, space travel will continue to fascinate us. The age of the Shuttle might have come to a close, but as evidenced by the tremendous progress we've made since these albums were issued, we have a whole lot to look forward to

Private Space Flight Industry Ready for Blast-off, Post-Atlantis

From International Business Times: Private Space Flight Industry Ready for Blast-off, Post-Atlantis
Space flight could soon be big business.

Now that NASA's shuttle program has ended, a a new constellation of companies is set to respond to the sudden demand for firms with the capability to transport humans to the International Space Station, and eventually the moon.

Google is prodding this burgeoning sector by bankrolling a contest to return people to the moon by December 2015, with the Google Lunar X Prize of $30 million going to the winner. Twenty-nine firms have already signed up, boasting ideas that range from broadcasting video feeds from the lunar surface to selling space to scientific institutions.

"In the near future, the Moon Express lunar lander will be mining the Moon for precious resources that we need here on Earth," an invitation to a launch event for Silicon Valley based Moon Express read. "Years from now, we will all remember we were there."

The prize money aside, there is a big financial incentive for getting in early on an untapped market. Barney Pell, a former NASA computer scientist who co-founded Moon Express, called it "the biggest wealth creation opportunity in modern history."

"Long term, the market is massive, no doubt," Pell said. "This is not a question of if. It's a question of who and when. We hope it's us and soon."

Private firms have long since begun sending people into space -- Virgin Galactic sells tickets on its SpaceShipTwo, whose predecessor SpaceShipOne was designed in an earlier iteration of the Lunar X competition aimed simply at putting people into suborbit, for $200,000 apiece . But the demise of NASA's shuttle program means the agency is playing a deliberate role in in fostering the private space flight industry.

It has contributed money to the Lunar X prize fund, and in April the agency distributed $269.3 million between five U.S. aerospace companies who are busy developing systems to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (in the meantime, American astronauts will be paying Russia $43.4 million per seat for the privilege). Space Exploration Technologies Corp. said it is on pace to offer space flights for about $20 million a seat.

"It has to be done for an amount of money that taxpayers are willing to pay," Chief Executive Elon Musk told the Wall Street Journal. "That should allow NASA to transport a much greater number of astronauts and to get much more use out of the space station."

Private firms are also increasingly becoming a destination as former astronauts, cognizant of NASA's dwindling resources and diminished scope, transition into the private sector. The Washington Post reported that former astronaut Garrett Reisman will be helping SpaceX, which already has a $1.2 billion contract to resupply the International Space Station, develop its Dragon transport capsule. His work will parallel that of former colleague Pamela Melroy, who will be working to establish rules for the private space industry from her new position at the Federal Aviation Administration.

IT & Network Infrastructure : Space Shuttle Atlantis: A Retrospective

From eWeek.com: IT & Network Infrastructure : Space Shuttle Atlantis: A Retrospective

The safe return of the space shuttle Atlantis marked the end of an era for NASA as the shuttle program drew to a close after 30 years. Atlantis, named after the two-masted, primary research ship that operated for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966, flew its maiden voyage Oct. 3, 1985. Upon retirement, Atlantis will be displayed at the Kennedy Center Visitor’s Complex in Florida. "Thank you, America, for supporting this program," shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson said after the wake-up call on the shuttle’s last day in space. STS-135 was the 33rd and final flight for Atlantis, which spent 307 days in space, orbited Earth 4,848 times and traveled 125,935,769 miles.

Since STS-1 launched on April 12, 1981, 355 individuals from 16 countries flew 852 times aboard the five space shuttles. The shuttles traveled more than 542 million miles and hosted more than 2,000 experiments in the fields of Earth, astronomy, biological and materials sciences. The shuttles docked with two space stations, the Russian Mir and the International Space Station. Shuttles deployed 180 payloads, including satellites, returned 52 from space, and retrieved, repaired and redeployed seven spacecraft.

Russia launches advanced space telescope

From Deutsche-Welle: Russia launches advanced space telescope
new Russian space telescope has "reached the targeted orbit," as of Monday morning, Russia time, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said in an English-language statement on its website.

The new observatory, known as Spectrum-R, is designed to study sources of radio waves from stellar phenomena, including pulsars, quasars, black holes, and neutron stars. The agency added that the space telescope will have a minimum lifetime of "no less than five years."

We will be able to observe very remote parts of the universe and to receive a highly accurate data about various galactic phenomena," said Viktor Khartov, the chief of the Lavochkin Research and Production Association, in an interview with the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.

"The scientists in the whole world are looking forward for this," he added.

A Soviet legacyThe space telescope was initially conceived of decades ago, during the halcyon days of the Soviet space program, but was perpetually postponed, and was mothballed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"For 20 years, it was always five years away," said Ken Kellermann of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the United States, in an interview with the American magazine New Scientist.

The telescope, which is also known as RadioAstron, has a 10-meter (32.8-foot) diameter, a small size when compared to many current terrestrial radio telescopes. However, given that its data will be combined with signals collected from Earth stations, and the fact that it will have a large 340,000-kilometer (around 211,000-mile) orbit, the telescope is expected to have a resolution 100,000 times better than the American-built Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990.

Russian space authorities are planning on coordinating the new telescope's observations with radio telescopes in the United States, Puerto Rico and Germany.

This year is significant for the Russian space program, as it surges ahead during the hiatus of manned American space missions. Earlier this year, Moscow feted the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. All international space missions ferrying humans into space will have to be launched via the Russian Soyuz capsule from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

"The main point is that Russia is returning to scientific programs in space after a long break," said Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, according to ITAR-TASS.

42nd Anniversary of First Man on the Moon Comes as NASA Ends Manned Space Program

WJHG.com CHannel 7: 42nd Anniversary of First Man on the Moon Comes as NASA Ends Manned Space Program
Thursday marks the 42nd anniversary of man's first stop on the moon. It will also mark the end of America's manned space program, at least for the foreseeable future.

The space shuttle Atlantis crew is scheduled to land Thursday. It's the last of the shuttle missions, which leaves many wondering, what's next? We wanted to know how some of you feel about the future of American space exploration.

Wonderworks' space exhibits is about as close as most of us will ever get to space. With the shuttle missions coming to an end, the public is left with mixed reactions.

"I wish they would have kept the space program because I think it's a big deal discovering new stuff in space, so it's kind of sad they're shutting it down" says twelve year old Zachary Baldwin.

James Edwards of Panama City Beach has a different outlook.

"Forty-two years ago we made a milestone, and our biggest milestone since that has been putting a couple of unmanned rovers on planets that have yielded absolutely no fruit whatsoever".

The aging shuttle fleet and budget cuts essentially eliminated U.S. manned space exploration. Some say, considering the economy, it's time to put our money elsewhere.

"You don't go to Vegas when you have $500 in your pocket, which, as a country, we are trillions of dollars in debt spending billions of dollars in the stars. What good could come of it?" says vacationer Djamel Bouchama.

Many of NASA's technological advancements, like velcro, have become part of our everyday lives.

It's ironic these youngsters seem to have lost that fact, as they play with some of that technology at Wonderworks.

Americans will return to the International Space Station, by hitching a ride with the Russians. The estimate cost of those tagging along with the Russians will be $63 million dollars a trip.

As the shuttle nears retirement, benefits examined

From My Fox Orlando: As the shuttle nears retirement, benefits examined
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Many know the space shuttle helped build most of the International Space Station, but NASA has a list of intended and unintended benefits that have been created as a result of a variety of technology spinoffs developed specifically for the space shuttle program.

"An artificial heart was done as a byproduct of shuttle technology,” says NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel.

It’s true. Famed heart surgeon doctor Michael Debakey helped develop a tiny artificial heart based on fluid flow through the shuttle's complex main engines.

And, to improve the health of space food, NASA discovered an algae nutrient previously only found in breast milk, that is now in 95 percent of all baby formula.

The shuttle also mapped unreachable parts of our planet, and the orbiter’s heat shield technology is in use by NASCAR.

"They use it to protect the drivers from the heat of driving on a NASCAR track,” says Beutel.

In the past, people have been confused about what a space derived technology is, versus a science spinoff. For instance, Tang, Teflon, and Velcro were used in space, but not a result of space exploration, according to NASA’s Beutel.

"Wish we could take credit for those, but no, we just used those and modified them and made them popular."

In all, the space shuttle and the international space station cost taxpayers around $100 billion dollars. Dale Ketcham, Director Spaceport Research Institute at the University of Central Florida argues it’s money well spent.

"The payoff has been substantial to the United States, and I would argue that there is no more worthwhile investment that has created more new technologies."

SpaceX Sets Sights on Launches, Dreams of Mars

From DailyTech: SpaceX Sets Sights on Launches, Dreams of Mars

In the upcoming years, SpaceX has extremely high ambitions for space travel to Mars


The millionaire brainiac behind the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) program has high ambitions of future private space exploration. Founder Elon Musk seeks a trip to the Red Planet of Mars before NASA's mid-2030s current projected timeframe.

Of course, Musk and SpaceX have delayed projects and failed tests in the past, but have shown great promise in current projects. SpaceX also continues to collect funds from NASA and other contractors looking to help go into space.

NASA's interest on the private sector relies on the hope of being able to use the SpaceX Dragon as an astronaut ferry into space, while the Falcon Heavy can carry cargo. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy successfully broke the $1,000-per-pound-to-orbit barrier at a time when space industry experts thought it couldn't be done at the time.

NASA and the US federal government are relying more on private contractors to help in the future -- SpaceX and its rivals will be more than happy to pick up the research slack. The SpaceX Dragon capsule may be prepared for launch in the next five years, with thoughts also on manned mission to Mars. Until then, the company recently announced it will invest $30 million for Space Launch Complex 4-East, located at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

It's believed up to 1,000 employees could be employed at the facility in the next four years. SpaceX plans to launch aircraft and test projects from the popular launching site, while competitors look for other launch sites.

The private space market is growing with even more companies trying to snag government funding -- and SpaceX will have to face the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket, along with foreign-based projects.

.......US spacecraft to be pulled into giant asteroid's orbit

Yahoo News: US spacecraft to be pulled into giant asteroid's orbit

.After its nearly four-year trek, NASA engineers are expected to confirm this weekend that the US spacecraft Dawn has entered the orbit of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the solar system.

Mission leaders estimate that Dawn was pulled into Vesta's orbit around 0500 GMT Saturday and engineers should be able to confirm this when the space craft performs a scheduled communication pass at 0630 GMT Sunday, according to the US space agency.

Dawn should come within 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of Vesta to study its surface while traveling 116 million miles (188 million kilometers) from Earth.

"It has taken nearly four years to get to this point," said Robert Mase, manager of the $466 million project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"Our latest tests and check-outs show that Dawn is right on target and performing normally," he added.

"We feel a little like Columbus approaching the shores of the New World," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator, based at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). "The Dawn team can't wait to start mapping this Terra Incognita."

After a year of observations and measurements around Vesta, Dawn will depart for its second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres, in July 2012. It will be the first craft to orbit two solar system destinations beyond Earth, said NASA officials.

The foremost objective of Dawn's eight-year mission is to compare and contrast the two giant bodies, which NASA says will help scientists "unlock the secrets of our solar system's early history."

"Dawn's science instrument suite will measure surface composition, topography and texture. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft will measure the tug of gravity from Vesta and Ceres to learn more about their internal structures," NASA said in a press release.

The spacecraft, which was launched in 2007, has a gamma ray and neutron detector instrument, which will gather information on cosmic rays during the approach phase, as well as an infrared mapping spectrometer.

The mission, which can be followed on NASA's website at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov, comes as a far more famous space craft, the shuttle Atlantis, orbits the Earth on the final mission of the 30-year shuttle program.

Private enterprise is working feverishly to come up with a next-generation US space capsule for cargo and crew.

US President Barack Obama has said such a capsule is crucial for sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit to an asteroid and to Mars.

Astronauts Get R.E.M. Serenade at Midpoint of Final Shuttle Mission

From Space.com: Astronauts Get R.E.M. Serenade at Midpoint of Final Shuttle Mission
HOUSTON — After a busy week in orbit, the astronauts on shuttle Atlantis will enjoy some much-deserved time off along with some good food and a song from the band R.E.M. today (July 14).

The four shuttle flyers plan to spend their half-day off relaxing and soaking in the spectacular views of the Earth from space. Later, they'll dig into a special "All-American" meal with their crewmates on the International Space Station, NASA officials said.

Shuttle commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley, and mission specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim launched toward the International Space Station on July 8, and have been hard at work since. NASA roused the crew today at 1:29 a.m. EDT (0529 GMT) with a very special astronaut wakeup song: R.E.M.'s "Man on the Moon," including a special message from lead vocalist Michael Stipe.

"Good morning, Atlantis. This is Michael Stipe from R.E.M.," he said in a recorded message. "We wish you much success on your mission and thank all the women and men at NASA who have worked on shuttle for three decades. From Earth, a very good morning to you." [Astronaut Rock: NASA's Final Shuttle Wakeup Songs]

"Good morning, Houston, and all we can say up here is, wow," shuttle commander Chris Ferguson replied. "We would like to thank Mr. Michael Stipe for sending up that wonderful message and that great song. I know a lot of us up here have been listening to R.E.M. for a long, long time. It's some of the greatest music and also reminds us of the moon landing next week, the anniversary, and we echo his sentiments to thank all the great people who've worked on this wonderful space shuttle. We're ready for another day in space."

Between unpacking the massive amount of cargo brought up by Atlantis and helping two station astronauts successfully complete the final spacewalk of the shuttle era on Tuesday (July 12), Atlantis' crew has kept up with a demanding schedule.

In the morning, the astronauts will resume unpacking a massive space locker, known as the Raffaello module, which contained about 9,500 pounds (4,300 kilograms) of supplies, spare parts, food and clothing at the time of Atlantis' launch.

The crewmembers will also participate in a series of live interviews before the start of their off-duty time.

The shuttle astronauts spent most of the day yesterday (July 13) unloading the cargo carrier, and will continue to do so for the remainder of the mission. Extra supplies that were brought up on Atlantis' mid-deck will also be moved onto the station.

"It's very cluttered in the [Raffaello] module," space station flight director Chris Edelen said in a news briefing yesterday, comparing it to a house on moving day. "It's a controlled chaos."

All that heavy lifting will likely help the astronauts work up an appetite, and just in time for a special meal planned for today.

The shuttle astronauts and their station counterparts are set to dig into an "All-American" feast together, and they've even invited the public to take part in their "virtual dinner." [Space Food Photos: What Astronauts Eat]

The meal will begin with crackers, brie cheese and sausage. For the main course, the international group of spaceflyers will share grilled chicken, barbecue brisket, baked beans and southwestern corn. They'll polish all this off with a classic American dessert: apple pie.

NASA shared its recipes with the public and invited people to share in today's space dining experience. Some members of Mission Control here at the Johnson Space Center are hoping to do the same.

"If they are having a virtual dinner, I do hope they have a downlink [video]," Edelen said. "Everyone will bring their food to the party like any good potluck meal. Yeah, hopefully we'll take part in that."

Atlantis is midway through a 13-day mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle is scheduled to land at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21.

For Last Space Shuttle Crew, It's Work First, Emotions Later

Left to right: Commander Chris Ferugson, Rex Walheim, Sandy Magnus, Pilot Doug Hurley

Space.com: For Last Space Shuttle Crew, It's Work First, Emotions Later
HOUSTON – The four astronauts on space shuttle Atlantis haven't had much time to think about the significance of flying NASA's last space shuttle mission with all the work they've had to get done so far.

"We haven't had much downtime yet, but we're working really hard to get ahead of it so when we get our half-day off, we can actually take time off and look out the window," Sandy Magnus, one of Atlantis' mission specialists, told reporters in a set of live interviews from the International Space Station today (July 13). [Photos: NASA's Last Shuttle Mission in Pictures]

Magnus and her crewmates, commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialist Rex Walheim spent today unloading a massive cargo carrier that was brought up to the station in Atlantis' payload bay.

The astronauts will spend the remainder of their mission unpacking the roughly 9,500 pounds (4,300 kilograms) of food, clothing and spare parts from the cargo pod and then refilling it with about 5,600 pounds (2,540 kg) of items to be returned to Earth.

Tomorrow (July 14), the spaceflyers will enjoy some time off from their duties — their first real break since launching into orbit on July 8 and arriving at the space station two days later.

Yet, despite the demanding timeline, Ferguson, Hurley, Magnus and Walheim have kept up an efficient pace through their mission objectives so far. And while the astronauts are flying on the last ever flight of NASA's space shuttle era, their priority has been on the successful completion of the mission.

"When you're doing your day-to-day jobs, you can't really think about it in those terms," Magnus said. "All of us are honored to be part of this mission and we're doing our best to leave the station in the best configuration when we leave."

In fact, the intensity of their work schedules has kept the spaceflyers from dwelling too much on the impending retirement of NASA's shuttle fleet, at least until Atlantis' wheels roll to a stop for the final time.

"[Our work] keeps us so focused that we tend not to look at the big picture as much," Hurley said. "I think we're all kind of telling ourselves that we'll have time to reflect on this whole event, this whole happening that we've gone through for the past nine months, and hopefully be able to articulate it and share it with everyone else."

For Magnus, she also thinks the emotions will hit once the shuttle has safely landed at the end of the mission, even though the finality of their mission has been a constant presence since the beginning of their training.

"As we've gotten closer and closer to launch, it hit us more and more powerfully that this really was it," Magnus said. "I think after we get back down on the ground, it's going to hit us pretty hard. I think we're going to have a pretty hard time leaving the shuttle."

SpaceX Breaks Ground on Launch Pad for Huge Private Rocket

Space.com: SpaceX Breaks Ground on Launch Pad for Huge Private Rocket
The company Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, broke ground Wednesday (July 13) on a new launch site for its massive heavy-lift rocket.

SpaceX is upgrading a site called Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara, Calif. The refurbished launch complex will host SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, which the company says will be more powerful than any launch vehicle currently in service.

Several dignitaries attended Wednesday's event, including SpaceX CEO and chief rocket designer Elon Musk and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, company officials said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, SpaceX is pouring about $30 million into the new launch site, with the aim of securing large launch contracts with the Air Force. Currently, the United Launch Alliance — a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin — launches all payloads for the United States Department of Defense.

Musk made it clear that SpaceX wants a piece of the military satellite market.

"These are difficult fiscal times for our federal government, and the Falcon vehicles can save the Department of Defense almost $2 billion per year in launch costs, while increasing reliability and capability," Musk said in a statement. "This presents a great opportunity for the DoD to avoid cancelling other programs and minimize reductions in personnel as budgets contract."

The Falcon Heavy boasts 27 of SpaceX's Merlin engines, three times as many as the company's Falcon 9 rocket. The heavy-lifter will be able to loft about 117,000 pounds (53,000 kilograms) of cargo to orbit, about twice as much as the United Launch Alliance's Delta 4, which is the most powerful rocket currently in operation, company officials said.

The Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful rocket since NASA's Saturn V, which blasted the Apollo spacecraft toward the moon. [Video: Falcon Heavy: Most Lift Since Saturn V]

The new heavy-lifter is to arrive at Vandenberg by the end of 2012, and its inaugural flight will follow soon after, SpaceX officials said.

The Falcon Heavy is designed to stand 227 feet (69.2 meters) tall and weigh about 3.1 million pounds (1.4 million kg). It would incorporate the standard Falcon 9 rocket, with two liquid-powered Falcon 9 first-stage boosters strapped on its sides.

The price for a launch aboard the new Falcon Heavy is set for $100 million, compared with the $50 million price tag for a Falcon 9 liftoff, Musk has said.

Space Launch Complex 4-East has a long history, but it hasn't been used for more than half a decade. The first launch from the site took place in 1964, while the last blasted off in 2005.

China want to explore the Moon, Venus and Mars

TGDaily: China want to explore the Moon, Venus and Mars
In light of last week's final NASA space shuttle launch, Beijing is stepping up to the plate with aspirations of exploring the Moon, Venus and Mars.

China plans to send a rover to the moon by 2013 and an astronaut by 2020. As the U.S. slows its space initiatives, many are worried that the Chinese may become the leader in space exploration, knocking the U.S. from its long-held top spot.

Space leadership is highly symbolic of national capabilities and international influence, and a decline in space leadership will be seen as symbolic of a relative decline in U.S. power and influence," said Scott Pace, an associate NASA administrator in the George W. Bush administration and proponent for sending American astronauts back to the moon.

Some American officials are worried Beijing may try to militarize space because the space initiatives are run by the army. Just four years ago, the Chinese fired a missile at a dead satellite in space, something which sent up a red flag for many officials.

Refuting the idea that the Chinese hope to militarize space, Li Longchen, former editor of Space Probe Magazine said, "Space technology can be applied for both civilian and military use, but China doesn't stress the military purpose. It has been always hard for humankind to march into space and China must learn the lessons from the U.S."

Although the Chinese are behind the U.S. in terms of technology and experience, they have a clear plan and the financial resources to back it up.

"One of the biggest advantages of their system is that they have five-year plans so they can develop well ahead," said the consultant editor for Jane's Space Systems and Industry, Peter Bond. "They are taking a step-by-step approach, taking their time and gradually improving their capabilities. They are putting all the pieces together for a very capable, advanced space industry."

The Chinese hope to launch a space station by 2020, the year the International Space Station is slated to close. If the International Space Station does close, it will leave China as the only nation with humans in space.

China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, forty years after the United States and Russia. The Chinese plan to start with the Moon and then explore Mars or Venus.

"The lunar probe is the starting point for deep space exploration," states Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's moon-exploring program, in a 2010 interview.

"We first need to do a good job of exploring the moon and work out the rocket, transportation and detection technology that can then be used for a future exploration of Mars or Venus."

Last space shuttle flight has packed schedule

Miami Herald: Last space shuttle flight has packed schedule
On the surface, the final mission of the space shuttle appears straightforward: a supply run to the International Space Station. But when is rocket science ever simple?

Apart from delivering about 8,000 pounds of food, clothing and spare parts to the six astronauts currently onboard the ISS, space shuttle Atlantis — which blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center Friday, marking the end of the 30-year space shuttle program — will also carry experiments in the fields of robotics, life-science and astrobiology.

“The main goal is to set the ISS up for continued operations through the end of 2012,” said Kwatsi Alibaruho,the lead space shuttle director for the mission, in a news conference at Houston’s Johnson Space Center the week before the planned blast-off.

One of the biggest experiments onboard will be the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) which will test the ability to refuel a satellite in space. Once satellites run out of fuel, they are discarded, said Benjamin Reed, deputy project manager of the RRM. This technology could be used to service hundreds of communications satellites that currently end up as space junk.

A Canadian Space Agency robot attached to the space station will use the tools provided by the RRM to practice transferring fuel between two components, Alibaruho said. A fuel-like liquid will be used for testing purposes.

Another experiment will study a natural phenomenon that could be used to purify water in space. The process, called “forward osmosis” occurs when water diffuses from an area of higher concentration to one of lower concentration, through a semi-permeable membrane. It’s what happens when you soak dried raisins or chickpeas in water and they swell up in a few hours.

Scientists will determine whether forward osmosis occurs at a different rate in space than it does on earth, said Spencer Woodward, project manager at Kennedy Space Center.

The machines that currently purify water are bulky, expensive and sometimes run into problems, Woodward said. The new process would use bags that are cheap, lightweight and small, which is convenient for space travel.

“We can use these on the ISS to save time and money,” said Woodward.

Another part of the mission will focus on retrieval of a defunct ammonia pump from the space station to learn why it failed. That will require a 6 ½ hour spacewalk by astronauts Michael Fossum and Ron Garan, who will deliver the pump to Atlantis and set up the robotic refueling experiment.

The astronauts themselves will also be the subjects of experiments on this final mission. An ultrasound machine will be onboard “to study the effects of microgravity on an astronaut’s physiology,” said Chris Edelen, lead flight director for the mission. Bone loss and a diminished immune system are common effects that astronauts experience in the absence of gravity.

Atlantis’ crew of four includes commander Christopher Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim, all experienced astronauts. The mission lasts 12 days, though it could stretch an extra day if necessary, said Alibaruho.

The crew had mixed emotions at a news conference a week before the flight, as they tried to balance the importance of the final mission with the enthusiasm to get going.

“We have an event-filled, packed mission that we have to get through before we celebrate the 30-year run of the space shuttle,” Ferguson said.

The end of the shuttle, though, is like mourning the loss of a friend, he added.

“I say that every American taxpayer should go see a space shuttle launch, because after it, they’re different,” Ferguson said. “They get it.”

Final Shuttle Launch Portends Bleak Future for U.S. Manned Space Program

eWeek.com: Final Shuttle Launch Portends Bleak Future for U.S. Manned Space Program
I watched the final Space Shuttle launch just as I did the first one–on television. There were differences. When Columbia launched I was watching the television mounted on the bulkhead of the wardroom of a U.S. Navy Perry-class frigate.

Right afterwards, I walked out on deck to see the tiny, bright speck followed by an immense cloud as it reached into the Florida sky miles down the coast from our pier. That was the last time I actually saw a Shuttle launch.

Today, it was a much improved television, and a much clearer view. And after all of these years it’s still hard to believe the magnificence when you see 4.4 million pounds of exquisitely complicated spacecraft ascend into the heavens. But that was the last time I’ll ever see such a flight. For the launch of Atlantis was more than the end of a program. The launch of Atlantis was the end of manned spaceflight in the US. We will never see another craft carrying people launch from the Kennedy Spaceflight Center.

Yes, I know that there are a lot of people who believe the brave words of NASA that we will return in four years; that we will have another spacecraft, perhaps one from Space-X, perhaps one from another contractor. But the fact is this will never happen. The federal bureaucracy, combined with aggressively anti-science members of Congress will ensure that another flight carrying a person never leaves from a NASA facility.

I also know that there are several private efforts underway that promise manned spaceflight. Virgin Galactic will probably provide suborbital rides to space for the very rich. There are other companies that promise to do the same. But these do nothing for the advancement of science. They do nothing for the exploration of space. They are entertainment, pure and simple.

So how is it that the U.S., a once-proud spacefaring nation has given up? It is, in short, because we no longer have the political and intellectual will to do things that are hard. We no longer wish to stir ourselves from our comfort to strive for anything. It wasn’t always that way.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” said President John F. Kennedy, speaking at Rice University on September 12, 1962. Kennedy was explaining why it was necessary to spend the money and effort to create a real space program and he set forth to inspire the U.S. to do it. I remember every step of the way.

As Shuttle Program Ends, Final Price Tag Is Elusive

It's interesting that nowhere in this article is the money earned by NASA factored in. All the new inventions that are now bettering mankind that came about either as a direct result of NASA's technological research, or an offshoot of it.

The Wall Street Journal: As Shuttle Program Ends, Final Price Tag Is Elusive

Now that the space shuttle Atlantis has lifted off, NASA is closing the books on its 40-year shuttle program, prompting a final reckoning. One piece of the history is surprisingly elusive: the price tag.

Some media outlets have pegged the total cost of the shuttle program, and its 135 launches, at between $115 billion and nearly twice that amount, demonstrating the challenge of tallying a bill over such a long time span. Among the difficulties are properly accounting for inflation and imprecise budgeting in the program's early years. Furthermore, none of the figures include about $18 billion, in today's dollars, spent by the Defense Department on the shuttle program, by one estimate.

Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, first estimated the shuttle's cost to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the early 1990s. He was surprised to be assigned the project by his master's thesis adviser, Rad Byerly, who had just completed a stint as staff director of a House space and aeronautics subcommittee. "I said, 'Isn't this something you could snap your fingers and find out?' " Prof. Pielke recalls.

It turned out, though, to require "a lot of archival work and budget reconstruction." Prof. Pielke came up with a total of $83.7 billion through fiscal year 1993. Earlier this year, he and Dr. Byerly reported in Nature an updated total of $193 billion in 2010 dollars, including an estimate of this year's shuttle spending.

NASA prefers to count the spending differently, mainly by not adjusting for inflation. That yields a far smaller figure: $115.5 billion—which amounts to $860 million per launch, far more than the $7 million the agency projected in its early days, when it anticipated weekly launches. NASA didn't maintain shuttle-specific spending figures in the early years of the program, which accounts for Prof. Pielke's archival digging, but it has done so for the past quarter-century.

NASA spokesman Joshua Buck says the agency's method, without an inflation adjustment, is preferable because "that's really how much cash we spent."

Prof. Pielke and others who have studied the long-range costs of spending programs argue against such an approach. "In any long-term longitudinal survey of budgetary costs, I think it would be imprudent and misleading not to adjust for the effects of inflation," says Stephen I. Schwartz, editor of the journal Nonproliferation Review and director of a 1998 study by the left-leaning Brookings Institution on long-range nuclear-weapons spending in the U.S.

Adding to the confusion, NASA also has released an inflation-adjusted figure, despite its preference for a figure representing cash outlays. That number is even higher than Prof. Pielke's: about $211 billion.

The space shuttle isn't unique in presenting a nebulous price tag. Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the libertarian-oriented think tank Lexington Institute, says that the U.S. military doesn't have a standard way to adjust costs of long-term weapons programs for inflation.

Dr. Thompson recently wrote a Forbes.com article criticizing the Pentagon for its claim that F-35 Joint Strike Fighters would cost more than $1 trillion over their lifetime just for operating and support costs. He argued that the price tag was excessive, because in 2065, when the program is expected to end, that cost figure is expected to be a much smaller proportion of the economy than it would be today. In an interview, though, Dr. Thompson concedes that there is no easy answer: "One reason they report numbers this way is there is no better way to do it."

A spokeswoman for the Defense Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Beyond inflation, there are other wild cards with the space-shuttle cost estimates. As Prof. Pielke noted in his original report on space-shuttle costs at the behest of a journal reviewer, his calculations don't account for the opportunity costs of capital invested that otherwise might have been spent elsewhere, which often is included in estimates of private-sector spending but not government spending. His calculation doesn't include Defense Department spending on the shuttle, which by 1996 had totaled roughly $18 billion, in today's dollars, according to Mr. Schwartz. And it excludes some non-itemized NASA spending in the shuttle program's first two decades.

Prof. Pielke says he is encouraged that the latest estimates he and NASA have produced are both close to $200 billion, once NASA's figures are adjusted for inflation. "I'm not going to quibble about $10 billion more or less."

NASA: Weather Could Delay Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch

PC Magazine: NASA: Weather Could Delay Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch
Weather issues might hamper Friday's planned launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, NASA officials said Wednesday.

Space Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters said today there is a 30 percent change of favorable weather for the scheduled 11:26am liftoff on July 8—meaning there's a 70 percent chance that bad weather will force NASA to scrub the launch. Officials are currently worried about showers and thunderstorms, flight through precipitation, and cumulus clouds.

Winters said the forecast predicts "nuisance weather" more than severe weather, like hail. "It's more of a tropical-type air mass," she said during a Wednesday press briefing.

Even if is raining on Friday, the launch could still happen, said Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director. "If it's cumulus clouds and rain showers, as long as we get a hold over the pad, that's a go day for us," he said. It could be pouring rain everywhere else in the county, but if there is a break in the cloud coverage, "we can go," he said, and that's what technicians are aiming to do.

The countdown for this final space shuttle launch began yesterday at 1pm Eastern. The possible inclement weather, however, affects a number of procedures going forward, the first of which is tomorrow's planned retraction of the rotating service structure (RSS), which protects the shuttle. Fueling, meanwhile, is scheduled to begin at 2am Friday morning.

Leinbach said officials will keep a close eye on the weather situation, most likely assessing the situation about four hours out. Earlier today, however, the shuttle Mission Management Team voted unanimously to proceed toward Atlantis' planned liftoff, so at this point, it's still a go.

For a Friday launch, meanwhile, there could be anywhere between 500,000 and 750,000 spectators. If the launch is scrubbed and moved to Saturday or Sunday, that number could grow.

Space shuttle launch delays are nothing new, though officials are at least only contending with weather-related issues rather than technical problems with the vehicle. Shuttle Discovery launched in February after a nearly four-month delay due to weather, leaks, and cracks. The shuttle Endeavour, meanwhile, launched in May, but not before NASA had to scrub the initial launch because Endeavour's auxiliary power unit failed.

Given that this is the final launch for NASA's space shuttle program, Mike Moses, Mission Management Team chair, admitted that the mood among the shuttle team is "getting more and more somber [but] that doesn't detract from the professionalism and cohesiveness of the team."

"There are millions of people in this country who have grown up with the shuttle program," Moses continued. "Anyone under the age of 30 has always had the shuttle program as a part of Americana."

The shuttle crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Monday, and are still prepping for Friday's launch.

Space shuttle watchers: Be on lookout for illegal boat charters

FloridaToday: Space shuttle watchers: Be on lookout for illegal boat charters

PORT CANAVERAL — Boaters unauthorized to run charters might see Space Shuttle Atlantis’ launch as an opportunity to make money fast.

They make promises of a prime ocean view of the lift off to passengers, but what they don’t always offer is proof they’re a legitimate operational charter service.

Like the legal charters, they advertise on Craigslist, on roadside signs and in fliers.

But the Coast Guard, which will be looking out for the illegal operators, warns potential passengers to be wary.

“Hiring someone operating a passenger vessel illegally can be very dangerous,” Chief Warrant Officer Matthew Ricks said. “If someone suspects they may be hiring an illegal passenger vessel the best thing to do is not put their lives in jeopardy and walk away.

There are no known illegal charters operating in Brevard County, but Coast Guard officials expect the temptation and the potential will increase for Friday’s scheduled launch of Atlantis, the final shuttle flight.

Coast Guard crews will be out in force with an increased number of crews and boats during the launch, but said they oftentimes hear from passengers after a problem, complaint or a mishap occurs.

“We rely on the public to let us know,” Ricks said. “Usually it’s the result of an accident or someone reporting that a captain was not operating safely.”

But the public may not know what to look for or what to expect from a boat operator.

Capt. Tim Turley, a licensed captain operator who runs charters on his 55-foot sailing vessel Vantage, said charter operators shouldn’t mind fielding questions from their prospective customers.

“Don’t be afraid to ask questions,” he said. “It’s like anything else in this day and age, if you’re going to have a contractor come to your home, you would ask for their insurance certificate.”

The U.S. Coast Guard web site offers an easy way to verify the status of a captain’s license online.

In addition, captains are required to carry their licenses with them at all times while they have passengers onboard.

“I can pull it out and show it to them at any time,” Turley said. “I wouldn’t be offended. I have to be mindful of the lay person.”

Vantage is advertised on Craigslist for “$850 for approximately four hours of sheer enjoyment.”

Some of those advertised on Craigslist do no give the name of the captain or even a phone contact like Turley and others do. They must be contacted through a reply online.

If a charter is caught illegally carrying passengers for hire, the penalties can be steep.

The operator would be subject to possible civil penalties of up to $35,000 for operating without a license.

There could be other penalties involved if equipment or lifejackets do not meet minimum requirements.

Coast Guard officials said accidents have occurred on charters, which demonstrate the need to know what to do in emergencies, having the right equipment and to make sure passengers know emergency procedures.

A charter boat recently sank off the port. Another had its anchor line wrapped around its propeller while it was under way and drifted into the jetties.

Passengers of charter boats should verify their boat captain is licensed, but they should also be aware of where the fire extinguishers are located, where the life jackets are stored and what to do in the event of an emergency.

There are different classes of licenses, but the general requirements call for documented experience on the water, periodic drug tests, fingerprints, knowledge of first-aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, references and a physical exam.

There are added requirements for carrying more than six passengers, operating larger boats and going beyond 100 miles.

“The best way for the public to ensure that they have hired a legitimate operator is to ask a few key questions,” Ricks said.

How many passengers is the boat certified to carry?

If the answer is more than six, they should ask to see the vessel’s Certificate of Inspection, which every boat carrying more than six passengers for hire is required to have.

It is evidence of an extensive process that checks the condition, safety equipment and crew competency annually.

If the boat carries fewer than six, then the vessel would qualify as “uninspected passenger vessel.”

At a minimum, potential passengers should ask to see the captain’s Coast Guard license and expect a safety briefing before getting under way.

Ricks said captains must give passengers a safety orientation either by speech or by brochure.

“It’s similar to being on an airplane,” he said.

University of Wisconsin Students Win Space Habitat Competition

Press Release: University of Wisconsin Students Win Space Habitat Competition
HOUSTON, July 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- University of Wisconsin students topped two other university teams to win the 2011 NASA eXploration Habitat (X-Hab) Academic Innovation Challenge – a competition to design and build a space habitat. The team will now take its inflatable space loft to NASA's annual Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert RATS) field test in Arizona in September. It will be tested as part of a simulated astronaut mission to an asteroid.

"University students are helping NASA develop potential habitats for future space missions," said Kriss Kennedy, habitat demonstration unit project manager at Johnson. "The teams collaborated to demonstrate how technology we might use in the future could actually be developed."

The tree teams totaling 135 students each spent a week this month at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston setting up and deploying their inflatable lofts for judging. Teams from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, and the University of Maryland, College Park also competed.

"This is a great example of how NASA can obtain innovative system concepts from universities," said Doug Craig, strategic analysis manager for analog systems at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These technology concepts are a valuable part of our human space exploration planning activities."

According to the judges, the 14-member University of Wisconsin team's design held promise for habitability and application to the Desert RATS mission simulation and was ready for field use because it had little leakage in the inflatable systems. The loft will be part of the home for a crew of four during the field test.

In June 2010, NASA invited university teams to submit inflatable loft concepts for the X-Hab Challenge. The three competing universities received $48,000 of seed funding to assist with their projects. The winning university will receive $10,000 to offset costs associated with the desert field test.

Next year's competition, X-Hab 2012, will look at volume, geometry and habitability of a deep space habitat and technologies for plant growth and geo-science sample handling. The competition is designed to engage and retain students in the science, technology, engineering and math disciplines, which in turn will help develop the next generation of innovators and explorers. It also tests concepts and solutions for potential future NASA missions.

X-Hab is sponsored by NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate and the Innovative Partnerships Office in the Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA headquarters in Washington. For more information about the X-Hab competition and updates about each team's designs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/analogs/xhab_challenge.html

Space Town Bids Long Goodbye

8 WGAL.com: Space Town Bids Long Goodbye
TITUSVILLE, FLORIDA (CNN) -- When the space shuttle blasts off for the last time on July 8, it will leave behind a thirty year legacy of exploration, and the most dedicated cheerleaders the space program has ever known. In Titusville, Florida, a small town just across the river from Cape Canaveral, generations have relied on manned rocket launches to bring the nation to their doorstep.

"We have a population of forty-three thousand, and there'll be several hundred thousand people here, so our population triples or quadruples," Laura Lee Thompson said, the owner of the Dixieland Crossroads restaurant, a favorite for locals and visiting space enthusiasts alike.

Just fifteen miles from the launch pad, no place on Earth has had a better view of the NASA launches. "You take this boardwalk and go straight ahead, that's the launch pad," says resident Bobby Socks, gesturing just off the Titusville shore and across the Indian River. When the shuttle launches, Titusville Mayor James Tulley, Jr. said, "It's spectacular, it really is."

The role of Titusville as the Yankee Stadium of space flight, however, predates the shuttle program. Titusville has been saying good bye to crews of astronauts for nearly half a century, since the days of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.

When man landed on the moon, no place was prouder. Several monuments have been built in Titusville to honor not only those who have gone into space, but also those who put them there, like City Manager Mark Ryan's parents.

"They're retired IBM'ers. My father worked on the instrument unit for the Apollo rockets, and my mother was in the quality control, records keeping unit for IBM as well," he said.

No other place has shared the space community's grief in quite the same way, either. When tragedy struck in the Apollo 1 fire, or the shuttle disasters years later, the people of Titusville mourned.

"We grieved. The whole city did. It was quite awful. Like some member of the family had died," said Pastor Ray Johnson.

"The Challenger hit us hard for three years," says Socks. "The unemployment rate went up. People were laid off, and it had a dramatic effect here and for people like myself. I was an eyewitness to Challenger; I was standing on the river and watching it. There are times when I look out over the river and I see that same cloud configuration, or the sky is as blue as it was that morning, and I flashback."

They have all shared in the work and triumph, too.

When danger threatened, as it did on Apollo 13, Titusville was there.

Marty Winkle says he was home asleep when the telephone rang. "We had a problem on Apollo 13 on the lunar module, on the command module, and I explained what I though we could do," he said.

More than anything else though, Titusville's people have watched each and every launch and welcomed the thousands who have come to watch with them. David Hamids is a science teacher whose family opened the Moonlight Drive In restaurant when the launches first started.

"We definitely feel the effects, the positive effects of the space shuttle launches, there is no doubt about that," he said.

Even after the last shuttle goes into orbit, there will still be hundreds of NASA employees nearby, still unmanned rocket launches, but everyone knows without astronauts, the crowds will not be as big.

"Our community is going to lose the gift of hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms that we didn't really have to work very hard to fill," said Thompson.

With the last launch, the town's identity will slip a little farther into the past.

"For me, it's probably going to be a lot of joy and a lot of sorrow all at the same time," Socks said, who knows when the tourists depart this time, all that will be left is a suddenly, shockingly empty sky.

Space Shuttle trivia: 8 key facts to remember

CBS News: Space Shuttle trivia: 8 key facts to remember
(Space.com) After 30 years of service, NASA's fleet of three space shuttles is standing down for good.


The final shuttle mission planned, the STS-135 launch of Atlantis, is scheduled for July 8. After that, the orbiters will be headed to museums to live out their lives on public display.

As we say goodbye to the iconic reusable space planes, here are eight surprising shuttle facts to keep in mind:

1. Top speed

While in orbit, the space shuttle travels around Earth at a speed of about 17,500 miles (28,000 kilometers) per hour. At this speed, the crew can see a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes.

2. Well traveled

The combined mileage of all five orbiters is 513.7 million miles (826.7 million km), or 1.3 times the distance between Earth and Jupiter. Each orbiter, except for Challenger, traveled farther than the distance between Earth and the sun.

3. Presidential attention

Only one president has been on hand to witness a space shuttle launch. President Bill Clinton, along with his wife Hillary Clinton, watched Mercury astronaut John Glenn's return to space on the STS-95 flight on Oct. 29, 1998 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

President Obama had planned to watch the shuttle Endeavour lift off on its final mission STS-134, on April 29, 2011, but that launch was delayed. The President and his family did visit the spaceport anyway.

4. Space science

The space shuttle isn't just a mode of transport: It's a laboratory, too. There have been 22 Spacelab missions, or missions where science, astronomy, and physics have been studied inside a special module carried on the space shuttle.

Spacelab, a reusable laboratory built for use on space shuttle flights, allowed scientists to perform experiments in microgravity . Starting in 1983's Challenger missions, animals became a prime component of space science. On the STS-7 mission, the social activities of ant colonies in zero gravity were examined, and during STS-8, six rats were flown in the Animal Enclosure module to study animal behavior in space.

5. Taking the heat

The space shuttle's Thermal Protection System, or heat shield, contains more than 30,000 tiles that are constructed essentially of sand.

All of the tiles are thoroughly inspected before liftoff - they are a crucial tool that allows the space shuttle to endure the intense heat endured when the shuttle re-enters Earth's atmosphere to land. After the tiles are heated to peak temperature, the tiles can cool fast enough to be held in your hand only a minute later.

6. Packing on the pounds

The heaviest space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, weighed 178,000 pounds (80,700 kg), roughly the weight of 13 African Elephants.

Columbia, the first space shuttle to fly, weighed the most because NASA was still searching for lighter materials to use, and integrated some of these into the later orbiters.

7. Official monikers

The space shuttle program is officially known as the Space Transportation System (STS), and so each shuttle mission is designated with the prefix "STS."

Initially, the missions were given sequential numbers indicating their order of launch, from STS-1 through STS-9. However, because the then-NASA administrator James Beggs suffered from triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) and wanted to avoid associations with the unlucky Apollo 13 mission, the agency drew up a new numbering system for space shuttle missions, according to NASA history accounts by several astronauts at time.

What would have been STS-11 was named STS-41-B, STS-12 became STS-41-C, and STS-13 was STS-41-D. The first number was the last digit in the fiscal year (1984), the second number indicated the launch site (1 for Kennedy Space Center, and 6 for Vandenberg Air Force Base), and the letter indicated the sequence (A was the first launch of the year, and so on).

After the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster, when that orbiter and its STS-51-L mission crew were lost, the agency resumed the sequential numbering system, starting with STS-26.

8. Tweeting from space

On May 11, 2009, astronaut Michael J. Massimino, a crewmember of the space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125 mission, became the first person to use the microblogging site Twitter in space.

Writing as @Astro_Mike, he tweeted "From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!"

Since then, many astronauts from NASA and other space agencies have posted Twitter messages from space. One, NASA spaceflyer Doug Wheelock, won a Twitter Shorty Award earlier this year for the posts and photos he shared from space using the website during his months-long stay aboard the International Space Station.

For NASA's final space shuttle mission, all four of Atlantis' crewmembers have Twitter alias. They are: commander Chris Ferguson (@Astro_Ferg), pilot Doug Hurley (@Astro_Doug), mission specialist Sandy Magnus (@Astro_Sandy) and mission specialist Rex Walheim (@Astro_Rex).

Atlantis's final mission is STS-135 and will fly a 12-day mission to deliver vital supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station. NASA is retiring all three of its shuttles after 30 years to make way for a new program aimed at sending astronauts on deep space missions to an asteroid and other targets.