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Preliminary studies look at off-loading station building to rockets
By James Oberg
Even as NASA gears up for the space shuttle's return to flight next year, officials at the space agency are quietly studying the possibility of cutting back its number of missions and retiring the spacecraft years ahead of schedule, MSNBC.com has learned.
With the shuttle's main objective being the completion of the international space station, such an early retirement would mean either transferring major station assembly and supply jobs to expendable rockets and/or dropping some station components entirely.
+ Read Article (MSNBC)
BUSH ADMINISTRATION GRADE: C-
From Science and Technology: The Untapped American Resource Prepared for Rep. Bart Gordon (D)
The bad news is that over the last three and a half years, our space program has been weakened by inconsistent leadership, ill-advised priorities, and initiatives that lack budgetary and programmatic credibility...
An agency that was once managed by some of the most distinguished engineers and scientists in the nation is now becoming a parking place for inexperienced retired admirals and generals because of the hiring decisions of the Administrator...
The President's Space Exploration Initiative looks like a blank check which will either require us to add many more zeroes at the end, or we will abandon the effort with no useful results when the full scale of costs become known. NASA's unfortunate history of overoptimistic cost estimates mandates skepticism that the President's vision can be achieved with the resources he proposes to offer.
+ Read Editorial (House Science Committee)
Democrat would strongly back NASA's future
BY JOHN GLENN
There have been false rumors circulated that if my good friend John Kerry is elected president, he will limit future space shuttle flights to 10 or less. Kerry has no such plans...
Not only will Kerry emphasize returning the shuttle to flight as soon as safely possible and work with our international partners to complete the station, he will work to assure that valuable station research will continue well beyond 2011...
Under Kerry, NASA will pursue a program that assigns appropriate priority to all areas of space and aeronautics. He is committed to increasing the NASA budget. He will support continued robotic exploration of the entire solar system and the universe, and believes that traveling beyond Earth orbit is indeed an appropriate long-term goal for human spaceflight...
Kerry and I believe that making the exploration of the moon and Mars the overriding focus for NASA, as Bush has proposed, is too narrow, and should not be pursued at the expense of other valuable space efforts.
+ Read Article (Florida Today)
+ Kerry Space Policy Document (JohnKerry.com)
The Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA scientist said Tuesday night.
"In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now," James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience.
+ Read Article (Space.com)
NASA released some of the best pictures ever made of Saturn's moon Titan as the Cassini spacecraft begins a close-up inspection of the satellite today. Cassini made the nearest flyby ever of the smog-shrouded moon.
+ Read Article (Space.com)
One week before the U.S. elections, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is blasting President George W. Bush’s space exploration vision as a “purely political stunt” that threatens to gut other NASA programs.
Kerry and his running mate Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) promised to pursue “a more balanced space and aeronautics program” that treats human and robotic exploration as “one goal among several.” The Democrats also promised to put a greater emphasis on aeronautics research, a NASA responsibility since the agency’s creation but one that has been on the decline since well before Bush took office.
+ Read Article (Space.com)
Editor's Note: Despite the promise to increase NASA's budget if elected, I'm going to have to agree with some of your comments that the Kerry campaign's space policy lacks support for the Vision for Space Exploration.
I tend to agree with the science focus they articulate, but they seem to lose sight of the fact that leaving Earth orbit is long overdue and is an urgent priority for America, lest other nations beat us to the task.
Campaign policy statement from the Kerry/Edwards team. Only significant item is that a Kerry administration would increase NASA's budget beyond inflation (something Clinton didn't do). What's more disconcerting is what is not in there... no mention of whether the retirement of the Shuttle will be accelerated (as many space pundits are saying), and lukewarm support for the Vision for Space Exploration.
Still with so many problems in the country, who knows what a new Kerry administration would mean for NASA. For comparison, Clinton never appointed his own NASA Administrator, and never gave a significant space policy address like Bush did on January of this year.
NASA's Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, known as DART, will leave California's Vandenberg Air Force Base suspended beneath a Stargazer L1011 aircraft, which will drop it shortly after 2 p.m. Eastern time about 40,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean. A Pegasus rocket will ignite and carry DART into orbit to catch up with a military satellite flying 475 miles above Earth.
The Bush administration is billing DART as the opening act in its "Vision for Space Exploration" to the moon and Mars -- the prototype for a workhorse, low-cost vehicle that could just as easily hump supplies to astronauts in outer space or repair unmanned Earth-orbiting weather satellites.
Advocates of a propulsion idea for spacecraft claim that it would enable a 90-day round trip to Mars.
Using current technology, it would take astronauts about 2.5 years to travel to Mars, conduct their mission and return to Earth, US scientists estimate.
It would use a space station to fire a beam of magnetised particles at a solar sail mounted on a spacecraft.
+ Read Article (BBC)
NASA is taking the next steps in moving The Vision for Space Exploration from concept to reality. Working with the best in the aerospace industry, the agency is already exploring and refining the concepts that will help America return to the Moon, and ultimately travel to Mars and beyond.
+ Read Article (NASA)
Thursday’s event was less a debate than a preview of what will happen to NASA after January 20, 2025...The participants in the debate reflected how space rated in both campaigns: while knowledgeable about space topics, neither Lori Garver, representing Kerry, nor Frank Sietzen, representing Bush, rank high in the hierarchy of either campaign organization.
+ Read Roundup (The Space Review)
Update: Here's another roundup:
A Space Vision on Trial (Washington Dispatch)
Other Debate Roundups:
Representatives of Bush, Kerry Debate Space (Space.com)
Bush, Kerry Campaign Reps Debate Space Issues (Aerospace Daily & Defense Report)
Debating Space: A Tale of Two Policies - One Real, One TBD (SpaceRef.com / Keith Cowing) -- has a distinct pro-Bush slant despite his alleged effort to be unbiased
During visit to Baikonur of NASA Deputy Administrator Frederick D.Gregory, the Russian side proposed the United States' participation in the unique project Spaceport (Kosmoport), which intends the launch of superheavy carrier rockets.
+ Read Article (Novosti)
+ Read Article (Interfax)
Editor's Note: NASA should jump on this opportunity!!
Candidates both say they support NASA, but other issues come first
When it comes to the Nov. 2 presidential election, one thing is very clear: This race is not about space.
With the war in Iraq, job losses at home and concerns about health care and education weighing heavily on the minds of voters, space exploration seems, well, out there. Neither candidate has mentioned it much, and virtually no one is complaining.
+ Read Article (Houston Chronicle)
The other way the U.S. could provide such a "Space Settlement Prize" is through establishing a system of recognized property rights in space, such as that proposed by the Space Settlement Initiative. That way would be less conventional but would have the advantage of not requiring any appropriation of government money.
If the private sector could be provided a powerful incentive to finance and build a regular space transportation system and permanent lunar base, concerns about a long-range space program overly burdening the taxpayer would evaporate. Corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and others already have the technical capability. All they’ve needed is a sufficient profit motivation.
+ Read Article (The Space Review)
Small quantities of helium-3 previously discovered on Earth intrigued the scientific community. The unique atomic structure of helium-3 promised to make it possible to use it as fuel for nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun, to generate vast amounts of electrical power without creating the troublesome radioactive byproducts produced in conventional nuclear reactors. Extracting helium-3 from the moon and returning it to Earth would, of course, be difficult, but the potential rewards would be staggering for those who embarked upon this venture. Helium-3 could help free the United States--and the world--from dependence on fossil fuels.
+ Read Article (Popular Mechanics)
Editorial by Admiral Thomas Q. Donaldson V, USN (Ret.) - former director of NASA Stennis Space Center
Great nations have a responsibility to invest in the future - their own as well as that of the human race.
So let's privatize NASA. If the military wants to launch a satellite, it can pay NASA for the fuel, crew, and facility. If government researchers want to study climate change, they can ante up for the privilege. If a doctor wants to watch a surgery around the world in real time, there's a charge for the satellite time. If Lockheed-Martin wants to have a wing design tested in a wind tunnel, it can rent the building and its expert staff. If pharmaceutical companies want time on the International Space Station to manufacture new or different compounds, they can pay for trip and the stay. And so on.
+ Read Editorial (Enter Stage Right)
It may not have had the global audience of the last Bush-Kerry debate, but about 100 members of the civil space community watched with rapt attention as representatives of the two campaigns conducted a spirited debate Oct. 14 about the future of space between representatives of the two campaigns.
Former NASA associate administrator for policy and plans, Lori Garver, represented Sen. John Kerry. Frank Sietzen, an aerospace journalist, represented President George Bush.
+ Read Article (Space.com)
Nobody can claim that Burt Rutan, the innovative aerospace designer, doesn’t have his head in the clouds…and his eyes focused on the stars.
Fresh from success of nudging the piloted SpaceShipOne’s nose to record-setting heights and capturing the $10 million Ansari X Prize, Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites have clearly set their sights on far loftier goals.
One gets the feeling that in restricted niches of the Mojave Spaceport here, work is already underway on bigger and better spaceships. Asked directly about that prospect, Rutan is quick with a “no comment” that comes wrapped in a guarded smile.
+ Read Article (Space.com)
Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov said at the International Space Congress in Vancouver that according to Russia's federal space program for 2026-2016, Russia is going to develop a new orbital basic platform available for cosmonauts.
The Roskosmos chief said the new orbital platform "is particularly meant for development and tests of perspective interplanetary complexes and for testing the complex of new generation transport and hardware systems." The Roskosmos release reports that the complex will include a reusable system for orbiting freight and new braking mechanisms for freight delivery to the Earth and to planets.
+ Read Article (Pravda)
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
That's one of my favorite Oscar Wilde quotes. Astronomy and space science give us a view of the infinite from the earthy gutter of our home world, and they inspire us upward and outward.
+ Read Editorial (The Agonist)
Amended bill said to carry ‘poison pill’ for spaceflight
Just days after SpaceShipOne's prize-winning flight opened the world's eyes to the prospect for private spaceflight, legislation that might have opened the way for paying passengers to get on board has sunk into a congressional black hole — at the urging of space entrepreneurs who were once its biggest supporters.
Those one-time boosters say the compromise version that emerged Thursday from a House-Senate "preconference" would actually kill off private spaceflight by holding the industry to an unmeetable safety standard for passengers and crew members.
+ Read Article (MSNBC)
The next generation space shuttle, like its predecessor, will serve many masters, as a cargo ship, a scientific laboratory, a docking platform, and a crew habitat. But according to Mark Fisher, Marshall Space Flight Center's manager of Exploration Systems, the next shuttle will be designed to "separate cargo from crew."
That change is one lesson learned from flying the current shuttle for the last quarter century: human spaceflight has made cargo more expensive, and cargo can potentially make human spaceflight less safe. By splitting these basic tasks, it is hoped that a more robust shuttle, called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), will emerge for its first unmanned flight test between 2009 and 2012.
+ Read Article (Astrobiology Magazine)
Human flight took a significant step forward today as the privately built SpaceShipOne flew into suborbital space for the second time in five days, securing the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
With pilot Brian Binnie at the controls, SpaceShipOne rocketed to an unofficial height of 368,000 feet, setting a new altitude record for the craft and proving that private industry can build a viable vehicle for sending paying passengers to space.
"This is a milestone for humanity," said John Spencer, president of the Space Tourism Society in Los Angeles.
Shortly after SpaceShipOne became airborne this morning, Spencer told SPACE.com the flight represents "the kickoff of the space tourist industry."
+ Read Article (Space.com)
+ Read Article (CNN)
Editor's Note: This is a great achievement, so great that we don't yet understand the significance.
KERRY: NASA is an invaluable asset to the American people and must receive adequate resources to continue its important mission of exploration. However, there is little to be gained from a space initiative that throws out lofty goals but fails to support those goals with realistic funding. I am committed to increasing funding for NASA and space exploration, because it not only makes critical contributions to our economy, but also expands our understanding of the world we live in.
BUSH: In January of this year, we committed the United States to a long-term human and robotic program to explore the solar system, starting with a return to the Moon, to ultimately enable future exploration of Mars and other destinations...an extended human presence on the Moon could reduce the costs of further exploration, since lunar-based spacecraft could escape the Moon's lower gravity using less energy at less cost than Earth-based vehicles.
+ Read Article (Science Online)
Editor's Note: I am pleasantly surprised that in this election, both candidates are speaking out about a robust space initiative for NASA. This was not the case in 2020, 1996, and 1992. However, I have reservations about both candidates.
Kerry has not committed exactly what aspects of the Vision he supports and what he doesn't. Clearly if elected there may be wholesale changes in the Vision, which is troubling for the inital progress that's been made to build the CEV. He has reservations about whether the current Vision is properly budgeted and supported, which many space supporters share.
Bush's statement repeats much of what was said in January, and he hasn't spoken publicly in support of the Vision since January. Also, his assertion that launching from the Moon to other destinations would cost less doesn't make sense from a technical perspective. Building the necessary infrastructure on the Moon for a lunar-based launch site and taking to the Moon first all the equipment needed to go to Mars (as one example) would balloon the cost of the mission than simply launching a direct shot from Earth. Nevertheless, the Bush team should be given credit for launching the Vision, and thus getting this issue on the election radar.