Space News Roundup January 10, 2011

• The Las Cruces Sun-News things Virigin Galatic, Spaceport America, and private space in New Mexico in general is a good thing for everyone.
• Three travel agencies in Florida have been authorized to sell seats on Virigin Galatic. WSFL has the story with cool shots of VSS Enterprise.
• NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is a moron. He says that in order to survive political wrangling, they must be affordable, sustainable and realistic. In other words they must be things we have done. To survive politics space travel must be new and exciting and commercial.
• Rick Homans, former director of Spaceport America, says that the new Governor, Susana Martinez, must declare her support or the project may slow or stop in its tracks.
  
• It only took 40 years, but NASA proved the Moon has a core using data from Apollo.
• NASA is currently stuck in bureaucratic hell, waiting on the congress and the president to figure out the budget. They have found $40 million more for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program since the beginning of the fiscal year (October).
• It is an odd felling, but I am proud that commercial space tourism has become mainstream enough to be actively attacked my environmentalists.

Space News Roundup January 5, 2011

• NASA researchers have found that they can cut the weight of some components by 20% and still achieve safety goals.
• New Mexico's new governor, Rep Susana Martinez, is auditing Spaceport America to make sure tax dollars are spent the right way.
• Long term space flight may impact your ability to have children.
• India is building their own GPS type system, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
• The James Webb Telescope may be pushed back 8 years due to cost over runs. The current launch date is now 2022.

Space News Roundup January 4, 2011

• NASA announced they had purchased data packages for $500,000 from three (3) Google Lunar X-Prize contestants: Astrobotic Technology Inc (Pittsburgh, Pa., USA), Moon Express Inc. (Mountain View, Calif., USA) and the Rocket City Space Pioneers (Huntsville, Ala., USA).
• The Universe lets us know once again, we really have no clue what is going on: Vast Solar Eruption Shocks NASA and Raises Doubts on Sun Theory

Also if you didn't realize it, The Space Review came out yesterday:

Space challenges for 2011

Peace

What’s in a number?

Reviews: Envisioning the universe

Space News Roundup January 3, 2011

• Canada is looking to build and launch their own rocket. To be honest, I understand their desire to reach an important space milestone, but I think they would be better served by building the infrastructure for launches and buying launches from private companies, such as Boeing and SpaceX. Of course ITAR is always an issue...
• NASA's Mars rover Spirit is still not talking.
• Some band I've never heard of wants to play in space aboard Virgin Galactic.
• NPR has a roundup of NASA's plans for manned space.

SpaceX Makes NASA Look Bad

Robert Block at the Orlando Sentinel thinks SpaceX's ability to launch a cheese-manned capsule into orbit and recover it for $800 million is "raising some serious questions about NASA." Meanwhile, NASA is spending $500 million in six months on a program that no longer exists.

First Android in Space

In February, NASA hopes to launch Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station. R2 (who could resist) is humanoid from the chest up.

There are no words for how stupid this is...

I can't even bring myself to comment on how dumb this is.

How Many NASA Engineers…

"You are so dumb, really dumb, for real"

Government 1 Common Sense 0

Due to the insanity that is the United States Federal Government, The Constellation program has been cut but NASA is still forced by congress to spend $500 million on the dead Ares 1 rocket through March.

From Fox News:

Constellation is the umbrella program that includes the Ares I, the rocket NASA has been building to replace the space shuttle as means of transport to and from the International Space Station, as well as other spacecraft that would have been capable of performing a variety of missions. President Obama cancelled Constellation last year, but thanks to congressional delays and inaction, the program simply won't die -- and it's costing big bucks.

This is mostly related to the fact that congress can't get a budget passed. Hopefully the next congress can get something together. In a world of deficit hawks and tea parties, however, this seems insane. This is why the government shouldn't be doing so much, they suck at most things.

NASA Jumps into Gaming

Apparently NASA is working on a massively multiplayer online game called Astronaut: Mars, Moon, and Beyond. A demo is avalible at their website.

Soyuz Launches for Christmas

The Russian Soyuz rocket launched American, Russian, and Japanese astronauts into space yesterday. These three new astronauts will spend Christmas on the International Space Station joining American Jeff Williams and Russian Maxim Surayev.

NASA Should Learn from Silicon Valley and Russia

Former astronaut Edward Lu says NASA should take a lesson from Silicon Valley and Russia and build smaller highly reliable rockets, like the Soyuz, and launch them as fast as new ideas in the technology world.

World Waits on US Plan

According to John Kelly, the rest of the World is talking a good talk about space, but in reality they are waiting on the US, and more specifically the Obama administration, to decide what we are going to do in space over the next ten years.

2010 NASA Budget Request Released

The 2010 NASA Budget Request has been released. For more information check out NASA's budget site. RLV and Space Transport News has comments specific to COTS.

White House Statement on NASA Review

The White House has released a statement on the study they are currently undergoing on the Ares program.

May 11 Shuttle Launch in HD

NASA will begin broadcasting in high definition (HD) from the Kennedy Space Center Friday at Noon (EDT). It will continue through the weekend. On Monday, at 8:30 AM EDT, it will begin launch coverage. The Shuttle Atlantis should liftoff at 2:01pm EDT.

NASA streaming and schedules are at:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Obama Studying Ares Program

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the Obama administration is studying whether the Ares program is the best way for NASA to move forward. With cost overruns moving the expected cost from $25 billion to $44 billion and reducing the number of crew seats from six to four, many are questing whether Ares is a good idea.

Former NASA Chief Michael Griffin said "I don't agree that there is a better approach for the money, but if there were, so what? Any proposed approach would need to be enormously better to justify wiping out four years worth of solid progress."

I am reminded of a Turkish proverb: "No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back."

Florida Today has more information on the study. RLV and Space Transport News questions whether the former CEO of Lockheed Martin should be leading the study.

Astronauts Get It

In an interview with Jeffrey Hoffman, MIT professor and former space shuttle, MIT News ask him about the shuttle retirement. He said he thinks it is time to retire the shuttle and get on with exploration. With respect to the private space industry, he said:

The only thing we need a spaceship for during the next few years is to get up to the space station, but the Russians will do that for us, and maybe even Elon Musk [founder of SpaceX, which is building the privately-funded Falcon 9 rocket] will do that for us. In fact, I'd love to see private industry take over maintaining the low-Earth orbit infrastructure. If private industry could support that on the basis of tourist travel and however else they can make money, then NASA could buy their services at the marginal cost of doing business instead of maintaining the whole infrastructure. I mean, NASA spends a third of its budget just supporting a transportation infrastructure, and if that could be obtained from the private sector, NASA would save a lot of money, which could be used for exploration, which is what I think NASA's real goal should be in the future, not running a transportation system.

Exactly.

Hubble Mission Cleared for May 11

The final Hubble Space Telescope mission has been cleared by NASA. The Space Shuttle Atlantis will carry seven astronauts to the venerable telescope on May 11 at 2:01pm EST.

NASA Backing off of Moon Base

After years of planning a permanent base on the Moon under President Bush, NASA in a now backing off of that promise. In a hearing with the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, acting NASA director Scolese admitted that building a permanent colony on the moon would be "expensive" and that we would most likely have something "less than an outpost."

NASA Begins Layouts

As the retirement of the shuttle approaches, NASA began its first round of layoffs Friday. According to NASA officials, 160 jobs were eliminated on Friday with 900 more to come. The jobs were mostly in manufacturing external tanks and boosters for the space shuttle.