Stumble It!
NASA News
- The Shuttle was moved on Friday to the VAB in preparation for a July launch. More here.
- The EELV checkout of the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the Delta II rocket is proceeding.
- NASA's Cargo Launch Vehicle Core Stage Engine notice has been cancelled. What this means is the possible use other SSME as the Core Stage Engine for the Cargo Launch Vehicle is officially dead. Instead, they are currently looking to purchase Rocketdyne's RS-25 engine.
- Glenn Research Center will oversee the development of the CEV.
- NASA is planning the outpost on the Moon.
- NASA is still having trouble hiring young people.
- NASA has tested a new automated safety system for redirecting off course rockets.
- NASA Budget fights are on-going.
- Problems continue with the Lockheed/Boeing EELV merger.
International Space News
- British built rover, Bridget, is being tested in Tennerife, a Canary Island. Bridget is a golf cart sized robot scheduled to launch in 2011. It is equipped with a drill and a "mars quake" detection device.
- India is happy about NASA's new cooperation in Asia. So is USA Today.
New Space News
- NASA Deputy Admin Shana Dale's speech at ISDC 2006. She discusses Red Planet Capital, the new venture capital arm of NASA.
Red Planet looks to address several challenges that are not being met through the traditional procurement process, or through less traditional mechanisms like prizes, license agreements, and space act agreements, specifically:
- To attract and motivate private sector innovators and investors who have not typically conducted business with NASA, including tapping more efficiently into the pool of small, leading-edge, organizations which are responsible for much of the innovative hi-tech thinking and research in the US;
- To leverage existing external venture capital to encourage development of technologies and products likely to be of future use to NASA's mission;
- To improve and expedite public/private partnership formation, through the redesign of administrative, management, and legal processes and procedures.
We received a strong response to the RFI and hope to have a selection made in May.
- To attract and motivate private sector innovators and investors who have not typically conducted business with NASA, including tapping more efficiently into the pool of small, leading-edge, organizations which are responsible for much of the innovative hi-tech thinking and research in the US;
- Elon Musk talks about how hard the rocket business is.
- More on the Lunar Lander Challenge.
- The Space Review interviews one of my favorite politicians, Newt Gingrich. I think he has drank the kool-aid, as it were.
Gingrich: I am for a dramatic increase in our efforts to reach out into space,
but I am for doing virtually all of it outside of NASA through prizes and tax
incentives. NASA is an aging, unimaginative, bureaucracy committed to
over-engineering and risk-avoidance which is actually diverting resources from
the achievements we need and stifling the entrepreneurial and risk-taking spirit necessary to lead in space exploration. - The Planetary Society has audio highlights from ISDC 2006.
- SpaceDev has a press release on their selection to the finals for COTS.
Asteroid Collisions
- More on the Apophis that has a 1 in 6250 chance of hitting Earth in 2036.
Bridget the British Mars Rover
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