Who's Killing the Space Program?

From Space Daily: Who's Killing the Space Program?
This past August the U.S. landed a one-ton spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Sending a spacecraft to Mars is not unique in itself, since we have sent several exploration vehicles to the Red Planet over the past five decades.
The latest such mission placed Curiosity Rover on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater.
This very advanced rover system carries instruments that will look for conditions relevant to the past or present habitability of the planet. Over the next few years, Curiosity will explore its landing site while searching for evidence that Mars was once capable of supporting life. Of course, the other question is whether Mars could support life in the future.
About two weeks after Curiosity arrived at Mars, NASA selected InSight as its 12th mission in its Discovery Program. InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will carry out a unique geophysical investigation of Mars, looking into its deep interior to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth.
The mission involves placing instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid, and why Mars' crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like those of Earth.
Knowledge gained about the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists better understand how terrestrial planets form and evolve.
However, Curiosity is certainly far and away the most complex vehicle to reach Mars, and it may be the last of the rovers for decades to come. Given the trend in space exploration budgets and the economy in general, it is unlikely NASA will be able to afford any future missions of this scale until such time that astronauts are sent to the planet. Since there is no urgency to do this, it will be at least decades before the U.S. will mount a human expedition to Mars.
NASA does have one other Mars mission planned to occur between Curiosity and InSight. It is a modest orbiter called MAVEN, slated for launch next year to study the planet's atmosphere.
Other modest missions may be funded in the interim decades ahead, but budget cuts and ongoing indecision at NASA regarding future missions suggests it could be a decade or more before any NASA mission touches down on the Red Planet's surface beyond InSight.
NASA had agreed to work with the European Space Agency (ESA) on a joint series of missions called ExoMars. However, when the Obama administration released its fiscal year 2013 budget proposal last February, there were no funds for NASA participation in ExoMars. That decision also included a proposed 20-percent cut in NASA's overall planetary sciences program.
Surely, part of the reason for the proposed cuts is the fact that the Curiosity Rover mission saw its costs increase from initial estimates of about $1.6 billion in 2006 to $2.5 billion by 2012.
In addition the original 2009 launch slipped to 2011. NASA's science program has also been squeezed by the increasing costs of other complex missions, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which now has an estimated cost of $8 billion.
So, who is killing the space program? The answer seems to be: everyone involved. Program managers and contractors underestimate program costs. Politicians don't have a mandate to spend large amounts of money on space exploration in the current budget environment.
NASA is not creating enough public excitement and interest in these programs to demand that congress fund them. The space community is not innovating new, low-cost missions of importance. There seems to be a general malaise among the space "movers and shakers."
The simple truth seems to be that space exploration has matured to the point where public interest levels have fallen while costs have risen to extreme heights.

Project Orion: Why Space Exploration Should Go Nuclear

From Urban Times:  Project Orion: Why Space Exploration Should Go Nuclear

The Orion spacecraft. Via Wikipedia

The human race, as it has always been, is on course for extinction. The Sun will lumber through its life cycle and, in the process of this, will engulf the Earth and destroy everything on it. This isn’t exactly new information and it’s one of the reasons why the continuing development of space exploration is essential to the survival of our species (and all others bound to this planet for that matter). One day, for whatever reason, without the creation of an invulnerable shield and a way to get energy without the Sun, we will have to leave this Solar System.

A design for Orion Pulse Unit. Via Wikipedia

This idea was slightly covered in xkcd’s “What If” weekly post entitled Everybody Out. This piece attempted to answer the question of whether or not there is enough energy to remove the entire population off of Earth. After some calculations in regards to the use of chemical propulsion (ie the same technology we use now to launch satellites and spaceships), just to move the weight of all the people (not including the rocket, fuel or anything else) we would need 8 petawatt-hours, or 5% of the world’s annual energy consumption.

. One of the fundamental issues surrounding [rocket science] is the fact that rockets need to carry the weight of the fuel itself.

Rocket science, as you probably know, is not exactly simple. One of the fundamental issues surrounding it is the fact that rockets need to carry the weight of the fuel itself. This suggest the creation of a never ending loop of increasing the necessary amount of fuel to carry the increasing overall weight due to extra fuel. This problem is solved using calculations based on the fact that the weight of the ship will decrease as fuel is burnt. As you can imagine, it is not the most efficient of methods.
At the end of the “What If” piece, we are given an estimation for the amount of fuel necessary to lift the entire weight of the population (roughly 400 million tons of flesh, bones and hair) would amount to tens of trillions of tons of fuel.It would take up a huge proportion of all hydrocarbon fuels on the planet. Of course, you could suggest we could use alternative fuels, but we still have to consider the weight for the ship, water, food and anything else we’d like to bring (xkcd’s article points out that there are about a million tons of pet dog just in the US). The article sums its verdict up with this sentence, “It’s not necessarily completely impossible, but it’s certainly outside the realm of plausibility.”
Obviously, the above example is taking things to the extreme, but it highlights the point that current propulsion systems are generally not that great. In the event of a global exodus, we would have to leave a hell of a lot of people behind without some new technology or, in this case, the revival of an old one.  In my opinion, the most viable alternative is also the one that sounds the most insane. It is the idea that we should launch ourselves into space by riding the shock waves of nuclear bombs.
Led by physicists Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson, Project Orion began in 1958 and is a perfect example of how close madness and genius become. The idea of nuclear propulsion was first proposed by Stanislaw Ulam way back in 1946. A year later, Ulam and F. Reines made the first calculations. The project came to end in 1963 in response to a lack of political support due to fears of nuclear fallout and the introduction of the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Admittedly, in a world continuously in fear of all-out nuclear war, the idea of propelling spaceships with radioactive bombs was hard for people to get behind.
So how does it work? You would expect anything within the vicinity of a nuclear explosion would be destroyed, but not in this case. Project Orion designed a shield that would be able to harness the propulsion of the shockwave and thus keep itself ahead of the explosion itself. On the face of it, it is a pretty simple concept. Of course meticulous calculations had to be done to get a viable design completed. Dyson was very hopeful about this project saying, “…a Saturn V bears the same relation to an Orion ship as the majestic airships of the 1930’s bore to the Boeing 707”.
Why would an Orion spaceship be so much better? Well, it is the fact that it can combine a high exhaust velocity with massive levels of thrust, which is something rocket propulsions cannot do easily. This means a nuclear propulsion system is by far much more efficient and requires significantly less fuel as seen in this table looking at possible payload weights demonstrates:
:

As you can see, as the journey length increases the Saturn V rocket becomes more and more laughable. Of course, you might say that the Saturn V is out of date and that surely more modern rockets perform better. Well, in fact,  to this day, the Saturn V holds the record for the heaviest launch vehicle payload. If ever tested, an Orion spaceship would have blown it out of the water.

Governments should be investing more and more in viable interplanetary technology

It is a shame the project was discontinued when it was. It was clearly a visionary idea that would have revolutionised space travel for the future. What’s the problem with a bit of fallout when the Earth is going to be destroyed? Dyson managed to work out the essentials for lifting 8,000,000 tons (easily the weight of a city) into space using Orion methods. This could easily be achieved considering the stockpiles of nuclear weapons around the world. Carl Sagan himself made the point that it would be a good way to use them up.
The solution to saving mankind is the thing that came closest to ending it. Governments should be investing more and more in viable interplanetary technology and I would wager that nuclear propulsion is our best shot. Paranoid fears about radiation should be dismissed can considered in a more reasoned way. We should not be eschewing technology because of outdated Cold War fears.

The Orion spacecraft. Via Wikipedia

The human race, as it has always been, is on course for extinction. The Sun will lumber through its life cycle and, in the process of this, will engulf the Earth and destroy everything on it. This isn’t exactly new information and it’s one of the reasons why the continuing development of space exploration is essential to the survival of our species (and all others bound to this planet for that matter). One day, for whatever reason, without the creation of an invulnerable shield and a way to get energy without the Sun, we will have to leave this Solar System.

A design for Orion Pulse Unit. Via Wikipedia

This idea was slightly covered in xkcd’s “What If” weekly post entitled Everybody Out. This piece attempted to answer the question of whether or not there is enough energy to remove the entire population off of Earth. After some calculations in regards to the use of chemical propulsion (ie the same technology we use now to launch satellites and spaceships), just to move the weight of all the people (not including the rocket, fuel or anything else) we would need 8 petawatt-hours, or 5% of the world’s annual energy consumption.

. One of the fundamental issues surrounding [rocket science] is the fact that rockets need to carry the weight of the fuel itself.

Rocket science, as you probably know, is not exactly simple. One of the fundamental issues surrounding it is the fact that rockets need to carry the weight of the fuel itself. This suggest the creation of a never ending loop of increasing the necessary amount of fuel to carry the increasing overall weight due to extra fuel. This problem is solved using calculations based on the fact that the weight of the ship will decrease as fuel is burnt. As you can imagine, it is not the most efficient of methods.
At the end of the “What If” piece, we are given an estimation for the amount of fuel necessary to lift the entire weight of the population (roughly 400 million tons of flesh, bones and hair) would amount to tens of trillions of tons of fuel.It would take up a huge proportion of all hydrocarbon fuels on the planet. Of course, you could suggest we could use alternative fuels, but we still have to consider the weight for the ship, water, food and anything else we’d like to bring (xkcd’s article points out that there are about a million tons of pet dog just in the US). The article sums its verdict up with this sentence, “It’s not necessarily completely impossible, but it’s certainly outside the realm of plausibility.”
Obviously, the above example is taking things to the extreme, but it highlights the point that current propulsion systems are generally not that great. In the event of a global exodus, we would have to leave a hell of a lot of people behind without some new technology or, in this case, the revival of an old one.  In my opinion, the most viable alternative is also the one that sounds the most insane. It is the idea that we should launch ourselves into space by riding the shock waves of nuclear bombs.
Led by physicists Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson, Project Orion began in 1958 and is a perfect example of how close madness and genius become. The idea of nuclear propulsion was first proposed by Stanislaw Ulam way back in 1946. A year later, Ulam and F. Reines made the first calculations. The project came to end in 1963 in response to a lack of political support due to fears of nuclear fallout and the introduction of the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Admittedly, in a world continuously in fear of all-out nuclear war, the idea of propelling spaceships with radioactive bombs was hard for people to get behind.
So how does it work? You would expect anything within the vicinity of a nuclear explosion would be destroyed, but not in this case. Project Orion designed a shield that would be able to harness the propulsion of the shockwave and thus keep itself ahead of the explosion itself. On the face of it, it is a pretty simple concept. Of course meticulous calculations had to be done to get a viable design completed. Dyson was very hopeful about this project saying, “…a Saturn V bears the same relation to an Orion ship as the majestic airships of the 1930’s bore to the Boeing 707”.
Why would an Orion spaceship be so much better? Well, it is the fact that it can combine a high exhaust velocity with massive levels of thrust, which is something rocket propulsions cannot do easily. This means a nuclear propulsion system is by far much more efficient and requires significantly less fuel as seen in this table looking at possible payload weights demonstrates:
:

As you can see, as the journey length increases the Saturn V rocket becomes more and more laughable. Of course, you might say that the Saturn V is out of date and that surely more modern rockets perform better. Well, in fact,  to this day, the Saturn V holds the record for the heaviest launch vehicle payload. If ever tested, an Orion spaceship would have blown it out of the water.

Governments should be investing more and more in viable interplanetary technology

It is a shame the project was discontinued when it was. It was clearly a visionary idea that would have revolutionised space travel for the future. What’s the problem with a bit of fallout when the Earth is going to be destroyed? Dyson managed to work out the essentials for lifting 8,000,000 tons (easily the weight of a city) into space using Orion methods. This could easily be achieved considering the stockpiles of nuclear weapons around the world. Carl Sagan himself made the point that it would be a good way to use them up.
The solution to saving mankind is the thing that came closest to ending it. Governments should be investing more and more in viable interplanetary technology and I would wager that nuclear propulsion is our best shot. Paranoid fears about radiation should be dismissed can considered in a more reasoned way. We should not be eschewing technology because of outdated Cold War fears.

 

Dark matter detector nearing activation in SD mine

From Yahoo News:  Dark matter detector nearing activation in SD mine

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Scientists hoping to detect dark matter deep in a former South Dakota gold mine have taken the last major step before flipping the switch on their delicate experiment and say they may be ready to begin collecting data as early as February.

What's regarded as the world's most sensitive dark matter detector was lowered earlier this month into a 70,000-gallon water tank nearly a mile beneath the earth's surface, shrouding it in enough insulation to hopefully isolate dark matter from the cosmic radiation that makes it impossible to detect above ground.

And if all goes as planned, the data that begins flowing could answer age-old questions about the universe and its origins, scientists said Monday.

"We might well uncover something fantastic," said Harry Nelson, a professor of physics at University of California, Santa Barbara and a principal investigator on the Large Underground Xenon experiment. "One thing about our field is that it's kind of brutal in that we know it's expensive and we work hard to only do experiments that are really important."

This one hasn't been cheap, at about $10 million, but like the discovery of the Higgs boson — dubbed the "God particle" by some — earlier this year in Switzerland, the detection of dark matter would be a seismic occurrence in the scientific community.

Scientists know dark matter exists by its gravitational pull but, unlike regular matter and antimatter, it's so far been undetectable. Regular matter accounts for about 4 percent of the universe's mass, and dark matter makes up about 25 percent. The rest is dark energy, which is also a mystery.

The search in South Dakota began in 2003 after the Homestake Gold Mine in the Black Hills' Lead, S.D., shuttered for good. Scientists called dibs on the site, and in July, after years of fundraising and planning, the LUX detector moved into the Sanford Underground Research Facility, 4,850 feet below the earth's surface. It took two days to ease the phone booth-sized detector down the once-filthy shaft and walkways that originally opened for mining in 1876 during the Black Hills Gold Rush.

There, the device was further insulated from cosmic radiation by being submerged in water that's run through reverse osmosis filters to deionize and clean it.
"The construction phase is winding down, and now we're starting the commissioning phase, meaning we start to operate the systems underground," said Jeremy Mock, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis who has worked on the LUX experiment for five years.
Carefully submerging the delicate detector into its final home — a water-filled vat that's 20 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter — took more than two months, Mock said.
Scientists are currently working to finish the plumbing needed to keep the xenon as clean as possible. The xenon, in both liquid and gas form, will fill the detector and be continuously circulated through a purifier that works much like a dialysis machine, pulling the substance out to remove impurities before pushing it back into the detector.
Keeping the water and xenon pristine will help remove what Nelson called "fake sources" — or stuff that scientists have seen before, such as radiation, that could serve as false alarms in their efforts to detect dark matter.
Nelson likens the experiment to Sherlock Holmes' approach to discovering the unknown by eliminating the known.

Once the data start to flow, it'll take a month or two before the detector is sensitive enough to claim the "most-sensitive" title, Nelson said.

After that, the scientists involved hope to start seeing what they covet most: something they've never seen before.

 

Lunar ‘Water Rush’: Robots May Search For Water On The Moon

From Red Orbit:  Lunar ‘Water Rush’: Robots May Search For Water On The Moon

The prospect of finding frozen water on the moon has several companies scrambling to stake a claim in “them thar lunar hills.”
“This is like the gold rush that led to the settlement of California,” said Phil Metzger, a physicist who leads the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations Lab, part of Kennedy Space Center’s Surface Systems Office. “This is the water rush.”
Water has already been found on asteroids and its discovery on the moon represents a top prize for NASA’s exploration plans because the resource has so many potential uses for wayfaring astronauts. Comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, water can be turned into everything from rocket fuel to a source of fresh air and water.
One of the companies leading the charge to mine the moon is the Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology. The company is currently in the midst of developing a solar-powered rover designed to search and drill for the frozen water.
“Our intent is to land on the surface of the moon in October 2015 and find water,” said the president of Astrobotic, John Thornton, alluding to his company’s recent deal with SpaceX to launch a lander and rover on a Falcon 9 rocket.
Thornton added that a number of competitors have sprung up and this shows the potential for landing a robotic explorer is real.
“If we were doing something really big and no one else was trying to do it, then it might not be that big,” he said.
Human visitors to the lunar surface never found signs of frozen water as they walked along the moon’s equator between 1969 and 1972. Water has never been found in any rock or soil samples ever collected from the moon. Within the past 15 years, several probes found signs frozen water not only exists on the moon, but that it is quite pervasive.
Scientists are also curious to find out if any frozen water is in the form of a powder, like the type skiers plow through as they swish down a mountainside, or if it’s completely solid ice. Some scientists expect to find evidence of water seeping down between granules of soil and freezing to create rocks as hard as granite.
“Our best guess is it’s going to be the ice,” Thornton said. “Probably small little pieces of ice mixed in with the regolith.”
According to an official statement on the NASA website, the agency is excited about the chances to use a new resource for deep space exploration.
For its part, Astrobotic said it wants to use the robotic prospector to map where the largest deposits of water and other helpful chemicals are located. The company could then use the information to efficiently extract the materials from the moon. According to Thornton, there are no plans to send water or other lunar samples back to the Earth.
“The beauty of sending a robot is they don’t demand a return ticket,” Thornton said. “Once we know where the water is and what form it is in, we can develop systems to produce it in useable quantities. Water is a critical resource because you can drink it, breathe it and use it for rocket fuel.”

Student Who Named The Mars Rover 'Curiosity' As An 11-Year-Old Gets Space Exploration As Well As Anyone

From LA-ist:  Student Who Named The Mars Rover 'Curiosity' As An 11-Year-Old Gets Space Exploration As Well As Anyone

Clara Ma at age 12 (Photo via NASA)

More than three years before the Mars Rover Curiosity touched down on the Red Planet, an 11-year-old in Kansas was only dreaming about how she could get involved in space exploration.
Now that Clara Ma has grown up and had the chance to see the rover touch down, she hasn't lost her sense of wonder. In a column that she penned for Mashable, she writes about how she came up with the name. She says she first read about the contest to name the newest Mars Rover in a kids' issue of TIME Magazine while she was at school one day. It didn't take her long to come up with the perfect name: Curiosity. She says she rushed home to pen the winning essay:

Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day. Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. When I was younger, I wondered, 'Why is the sky blue?', 'Why do the stars twinkle?', 'Why am I me?', and I still do.

Based on her latest essay, we'd venture to say she probably gets science and space exploration as much as anyone who works at JPL or NASA (including the dude with the crazy mohawk). She writes about how she first became fascinated with space:

My grandmother lived in China, thousands of miles away from my home in Kansas. I loved the stars because they kept us together even when we were apart. They were always there, yet there was so much I didn’t know about them. That’s what I love so much about space. No matter how much we learn, it will always possess a certain degree of mystery.

She reflects on how space exploration means something different now than it did during the midcentury Space Race:

In the past, space exploration may have been a competition to see who got somewhere first or the fastest. But now, it is one of the few things that bring people together. Science is a language that needs no translation. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you look like — you just have to have a thirst for knowledge and a passion for learning in order to succeed.

The entire essay is worth a read.

On Aug. 5 at 10:31 p.m. PST, a rover named Curiosity touched down safely on the surface of Mars, and I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat.
My name is Clara, and when I was in 6th grade, I won the essay contest NASA held to name its next Mars rover. The essay I wrote was not even 250 words long, but somehow it was enough to change my life.
I still remember that chilly December day, sitting in science class. I’d finished a worksheet early and decided to get a TIME for Kids magazine off of Mrs. Estevez’s bookshelf. It was the 2008 Invention Issue, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught my eye. In the magazine, there was an article about a girl who named the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
The article also talked about the essay contest NASA was holding to name its next Mars rover. Before I even knew anything else about it, a single word flooded my 11-year-old mind: Curiosity.
I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so I could get started on my essay. That afternoon, I raced home from the bus stop, sat down at the computer, and typed until my fingers ached. It turns out I was just in time. A few days later, and the contest would have closed.
Five months later, shortly after I had turned 12, I was watching a National Geographic special on mammoths when the phone rang. My mom answered, and immediately, a wide smile spread across her face.
When she told me that I had won, I was happier than I could ever remember being. I screamed and ran up and down the stairs and all around the house. I completely forgot about the mammoths and did not even remember to turn off the TV until it was really late.
When she told me that I had won, I was happier than I could ever remember being. I screamed and ran up and down the stairs and all around the house. I completely forgot about the mammoths and did not even remember to turn off the TV until it was really late.
Curiosity is such an important part of who I am. I have always been fascinated by the stars, the planets, the sky and the universe. I remember as a little girl, my grandmother and I would sit together in the backyard for hours. She’d tell me stories and point out constellations.
Here in the heart of the country, my grandmother would say, there were no bright city lights to compete with the brilliance of the stars. There was just the chirping of the cicadas and the soft summer breeze.
My grandmother lived in China, thousands of miles awa
The Curiosity rover is more than just a robot. It is more than just a titanium body and aluminum wheels. Curiosity represents the hard work, passion, love and commitment of thousands of people from all over the world who were brought together by science.
Science is so awesome. It is breathtaking and mind-blowing, intertwining and unifying; and sometimes, it’s just a little bit crazy. The discoveries we make about our world are incredibly humbling. They move us forward and have the potential to benefit all of mankind.
This December it will be four years of my life that have been tied to Curiosity in some way. I’ve met so many amazing people through this experience, from scientists to engineers to administrators to volunteers. Their dedication and fervor inspire me immensely. My journey with Curiosity and the MSL mission team has shaped the person that I am today, as well as the person I would one day like to become.
I am deeply grateful to everyone who made it possible for me to have this amazing adventure.
And to you, I hope your curiosity takes you far.
y from my home in Kansas. I loved the stars because they kept us together even when we were apart. They were always there, yet there was so much I didn’t know about them. That’s what I love so much about space. No matter how much we learn, it will always possess a certain degree of mystery.
In the past, space exploration may have been a competition to see who got somewhere first or the fastest. But now, it is one of the few things that bring people together. Science is a language that needs no translation. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you look like — you just have to have a thirst for knowledge and a passion for learning in order to succeed.
People often ask me why we go to faraway places like Mars. Why do we explore? My answer to that is simple: because we can. Because we’re curious. Because we as human beings do not just stay holed up in one place. We are constantly wondering and trying to find out what’s over the hill and beyond the horizon.

 

Program gears up to test space vehicles

From VCStar.com:  Program gears up to test space vehicles

HILO, Hawaii (AP) - A program to test space vehicles on the Big Island is getting an infusion of millions of new investment dollars.
The state is putting $2.34 million into the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems to help the program prepare for missions to Mars or the moon, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday (http://is.gd/T889A7 ).
Rob Kelso, the new director of the program, known as PISCES, said long-term plans call for a high-tech park in Hawaii for research into technologies related to space travel and colonization.
One project for the near-term is developing a concrete-like building material that can be used in space and on Earth. Kelso said there also will be continued testing and research of robotic systems being designed for use on the moon or Mars.
Some of the equipment on the Mars rover Curiosity was tested on Mauna Kea in 2008 because that terrain is so similar to the basaltic makeup of Mars, said Kelso, who is a former NASA space shuttle flight director at Johnson Space Center.
He joined other researchers and space enthusiasts at the annual PISCES conference in Waikoloa this week for discussions and demonstrations of robotic equipment designed to explore challenging space environments.
Another avenue for research would be to develop new ways to extract resources, including oxygen and water, from the terrain on Mars, which has a chemical composition strikingly similar to portions of the Hawaii island landscape.
The PISCES project was founded in 2007, and this year was shifted from the University of Hawaii at Hilo into the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Kelso said the state is looking for a site for a new research facility that initially would be home to PISCES and might one day become an "aerospace enterprise zone" based in the Hilo area.
"Our goal is to become the preferred provider for space agencies and commercial space businesses around the world that are developing technologies to help enable and sustain planetary surface exploration," Kelso told PISCES conference attendees.
In the meantime, the program plans to rent temporary office space in Hilo, Kelso said.

Mars a major focus of space program

From News Leader:  Mars a major focus of space program

Decades ago, men looked up at Mars and could only wonder what was there. The planet was often seen as the home of little green men who invaded Earth in the movies.
Ever since the first photos of Mars were taken in 1965, NASA scientists have learned quite a bit about the Red Planet. They have learned that Mars is a cold, rocky wasteland that was once covered with active volcanoes and pounded by meteors.


The primary focus on Mars is the possible presence of liquid water, either in the past or trapped in the subsurface. That is because where there is water, there is always the possibility of microscopic life.
Evidence of water on Mars comes from polar cap ice, features that look like dry river beds, and rocks that appear as if they could only have been formed with water present.



NASA exploration of Mars began when Mariner flew past the planet in 1965, taking close-up photos. Viking I became the first spacecraft to touch down on the planet, in 1976, and return photos of the surface.
There was Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Pathfinder rover, Mars Odyssey, Phoenix, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Mars Express and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, all contributing to a collective knowledge about the planet. Many of these missions are still operating, continuing to sending information back to NASA.

Not every mission was a success, however. Mars Observer, Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 are examples of Mars programs that were lost or failed to operate properly.

Curiosity

Mars Science Laboratory, with its rover Curiosity, is the most recent mission to Mars. Its mission is extremely ambitious: to find out whether Mars ever had an environment that would have allowed it to support life.
Through the six-wheeled, car-sized rover Curiosity, scientists continue to make discoveries on the Martian surface. Curiosity was launched Nov. 26, 2011, and landed on the planet on Aug. 6. The rover drives slowly across the surface of the planet, scooping up samples of soil. An on-board laboratory studies the chemical composition of soils and rock and can search for forms of carbon, which are considered the chemical building blocks of life.

 

Budget cuts cripple space exploration

From Northwest Missourian:  Budget cuts cripple space exploration

On Oct. 14, Felix Baumgartner captivated the minds and imaginations of millions of Americans with his world record-setting space jump from over 20 miles above the surface of the Earth.
Interestingly enough, just two weeks later the first commercial cargo flight into space was pulled off by the California-based company SpaceX. Both of these monumental achievements of science have one thing in common: the technology used in these missions was developed by NASA. However, as of late, this once-great administration has lost its luster, primarily due to the severe budget cuts it has endured.

President Obama’s proposed fiscal budget for 2013 calls for $309 million in cuts to the former leader in the space race of the ‘60s and ‘70s. That is a 20 percent slash of funds to NASA that would have gone to future Mars exploration and other missions.
That is somber news for anyone who grew up in the “Space Age” just a few decades ago. This country used to lead the way in discovering the infinite frontier of space, eager to learn more about what else is out there.
After the historic moon landing in 1969, America wondered how long would it be before we reached Mars and beyond. Unfortunately, 40 years later, we haven’t moved far from just dreaming.
No one has even been to the moon, much less Mars, since the last Apollo mission returned home in 1972. Sure, we’ve sent a few probes and put up some telescopes since then, but the drive to reach other worlds and the focus on space has long been dead.
Why is this happening? What happened to the “America of Tomorrow” and our dreams of moon bases? Well, in short, American politics got in the way.
The current allowance for NASA is .5 percent of the national budget, compared to the 4 percent it received in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Many argue that NASA is an unnecessary expenditure, and we can’t afford to keep it going at its current level, no matter how little percent of the budget it accounts for.
Let’s take a look at military spending in the United States and see if we can perhaps give NASA some of its money. Many politicians have proposed military spending to be around 4 percent of the GDP, not including war costs. Keep in mind it is estimated that the U.S. spent $12 million a day in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is ridiculous to say we can’t give even a small sliver of that wasteful spending to NASA. Yes, every mission may not be completely practical, but neither is buying another $600 million aircraft carrier.
I think it’s reasonable to ask our government to get rid of maybe one aircraft carrier or so to make room for NASA. If they do, the American people can start dreaming of the future again.

 

Media Advisory: Space Conference Brings Astronauts, Space Industry CEOs to Buffalo

From University of Buffalo News Center: Media Advisory: Space Conference Brings Astronauts, Space Industry CEOs to Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- NASA's famed space shuttle program ended in 2011. Private companies are heading into orbit. What does the future hold for humanity in space? What new job opportunities are on the horizon for students?

To answer these questions, the University at Buffalo's chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is hosting the nation's largest student-run space conference.

The event, SpaceVision 2012, takes place from Nov. 8-11 at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center at 153 Franklin St., Buffalo. A detailed agenda: http://spacevision.seds.org/agenda/.

UB students competed with SEDS chapters nationwide to host the conference, which serves as SEDS' annual U.S. convention. More than 250 people from across the country are expected to attend.

For a video of UB students from SEDS discussing their love for space and future career ambitions, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAvKPYMqnmg.

MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES:

WHAT: Astronaut Peggy Whitson, the 13th chief of NASA's Astronaut Office, will be available to speak to media. Whitson, who served as the International Space Station's first woman commander, will answer questions about her experience and the future of space exploration.

Students who are planning to pursue space-related careers will also be on hand to share their thoughts on the future of the space and aeronautics industry.

WHEN: 11:30 a.m. to noon on Friday, Nov. 9. Following this media availability, Whitson will deliver a keynote address from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. describing her experiences and how the next generation will make a difference in the future of space exploration.

WHERE: The lobby of the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center.

WHY: The conference theme is "Crossroads: How Our Generation Will Take Us to the Space Frontier." This topic recognizes changes underway in the space industry, including the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011 and the growing number of private companies exploring everything from mining asteroids to making space travel available to the public. Whitson and the students will be able to provide distinct perspectives about the future of space exploration. Whitson's biography: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/whitson.html.

CONTACT: Media who would like to attend should contact Charlotte Hsu in UB's Office of University Communications at 716-645-4655 or chsu22@buffalo.edu, or 510-388-1831 on-site. *

WHAT: UB alumnus Chris Scolese, director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, will deliver a keynote address, enabling attendees to hear from the head of one of the nation's most critical robotic research facilities. Scolese, who attended high school in Western New York, received a BS in electrical engineering from UB in 1978.

WHEN: 8 to 9 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10.

WHERE: Room 106 of the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center.

CONTACT: Media who would like to attend should contact Charlotte Hsu in UB's Office of University Communications at 716-645-4655 or chsu22@buffalo.edu, or 510-388-1831 on-site. *

Besides Scolese, conference presenters include another UB graduate: Hussein Jirdeh, head of communications and public outreach for the Space Telescope Science Institute, who received a PhD in mechanical engineering from UB in 1988.

Landmark Moments in Private Space Exploration

This is a video which you can only see at Youtube via a computer
  
From the Wall Street Journal YouTube Channel: Landmark Moments in Private Space Exploration 

The sad thing is it's been up for about a month and only has 592 views.

 

Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly makes the case for Obama's space program

From Examiner:  Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly makes the case for Obama's space program

Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, the commander of the last flight of the space shuttle Endeavour, and the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, offered the case for continuing the course of President Obama’s space policy in a recent piece in Florida Today. Like Gaul, his defense of the Obama space program was divided into three parts.
First, he touted a $500 million plan to upgrade launch facilities at the Kennedy Space Center. Part of this seems to be a play for Florida voters, as he states that this would have the effect of “--creating new jobs to upgrade Kennedy Space Center.” Kelly did not touch upon how these upgrades would facilitate NASA launch operations.
Second, Kelly touched upon the development of the Orion Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle and the heavy lift Space Launch System. He states that this new space craft would enable American astronauts to “--to go beyond Earth’s orbit to the moon, asteroids and beyond” and coincidentally create jobs at the Kennedy Space Center. He does not mention that the Obama administration initially resisted the early development of the Orion and the SLS, these being a congressional mandate.
Finally, Kelly touts the development of the Kennedy Space Center as a commercial space port, launching spacecraft such as the SpaceX Dragon, which recently delivered supplies to the International Space Station and returned cargo to Earth. Again, Kelly touts the jobs this would create in Florida.
The one major critique of Kelly’s defense of the president’s space program is that it seems to be narrowly focused on its capacity to create jobs in Florida, considered a swing state, albeit one that seems to be, as of this writing, firmly in Mitt Romney’s column. NASA is a national space agency whose benefits should be judged by how much the effect the entire United States and not just one state. As such, Kelly’s argument seems to be undermined as it is too nakedly political.

Atlantis: The final space shuttle to enter retirement

From CNN:  Atlantis: The final space shuttle to enter retirement

This is it. Until now there was still a faint heartbeat, a bit of a pulse. But Friday, space shuttle program veterans will have sent the final orbiter into retirement: Atlantis.
“We will look after her as long as we are allowed to do so,” says Stephanie Stilson, who spent a decade preparing the shuttle Discovery for each flight.
After the shuttle program ended, Stilson was put in charge of readying each vehicle for retirement. “You can definitely sense a feeling of wanting to hold onto Atlantis as long as we can,” she says.
Once those giant doors at the vehicle assembly building close behind Atlantis, there will be finality. “I’m not sure if that will really sink in until Atlantis is out of sight,” says Stilson.
Unlike Discovery and Endeavour, Atlantis is staying close to home and won’t get to make any final glamorous flyovers. The shuttle will be towed just about 10 miles on Friday to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, its new home. Along the way, there will a ceremony and a stop at the space center's Exploration Park, where people can get a close look.
Atlantis flew in space 33 times during its career. Its final landing was July 21, 2011, marking the end of the space shuttle program.
The shuttle program was certainly far more than just vehicles that flew in space. It wasn’t just about the astronauts who flew them or the phenomenal accomplishments and the horrific tragedies.
Sure, these machines seemed to take on anthropomorphic characteristics. But above all, the program was about the people who built the machines. It was about the people who cared for them and got them ready to fly.
Many of these are people are out of work. Some have found employment. Many are hoping to land jobs with the commercial space companies, but their workforces are much smaller.
United Space Alliance, which handled shuttle processing, has laid off about 5,800 employees, more than 4,000 of whom were at the Kennedy Space Center. Some were kept on to finish the work of prepping the orbiters for retirement; those 300 will be gone by January.
“The ones that received their notices for December were sad to see things come to an end, but they also seemed at peace with it,” says Stilson. “We have known this moment was coming for a very long time. The ones still here feel fortunate that they were allowed to stay this long,” she added.
 A NASA employee, she wasn’t impacted directly by the layoffs, but she has been affected by friends lost and people hurting. For the next year, Stilson is going to spend some time at NASA headquarters in Washington working on future exploration, but it won’t be the same. “Once you’ve worked at KSC, it is hard to find anything comparable,” she says.
NASA is doing everything it can to talk about the future of space exploration and how grand it will be.  For now, other than commercial company successes, not much is concrete. It really is about the memories.
“Looking back over my entire career,” says Stilson, “the one that stands out the most is the launch and landing of the 'return to flight' mission after the loss of Columbia.” She adds, “The team had been through so much, losing the crew and the vehicle, but they were adamant that we would fly again and prove that we could overcome the tragedy and continue to do great work in honor of the crew’s memory.”
Stilson wraps up saying, “I am so grateful to have been part of the shuttle program to the very end, and I doubt anything I do in the future will ever compare to the memories I have collected over the past 23 years.”