Tuesday’s space news scan finds new concerns that the latest White House space policy is under funding NASA’s human space flight program. The concern, expressed in several reports, was voiced by Lester Lyles, a member of the Augustine Committee and the lead for a National Research Council report last year that also examined NASA’s future. At the time, Lyles and his NRC committee questioned whether spending on NASA’s Constellation back-to-the-moon program was forcing NASA’s aeronautics and science programs to sacrifice too much. Now, warn Lyles and two colleagues, the latest policy initiative from President Obama, which includes the cancellation of Constellation, threatens to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. Plus more on NASA’s future. Also, a countdown starts Tuesday at 4 p.m., EDT, for the launching of shuttle Atlantis on the orbiter’s last scheduled spaceflight. Lift off of the 25-year-old orbiter and a crew of six is set for Friday at 2:20 p.m., EDT.
1.From Spacepolicyonline, in a letter to U. S. Rep. Frank Wolf, of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over NASA, Lyles and two others warn that President Obama’s space policy is jeopardizing human spaceflight. “It makes no more sense to have a NASA with an under-emphasis on human spaceflight than it did to have a NASA with an over-emphasis,” write Lyles and his colleagues write Wolf.
Lyles led last year’s NRC committee report, “America’s Future in Space: Aligning the Civil Space Program With National Needs.”
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=888:lyles-fisk-and-colladay-pendulum-has-swung-too-far-the-other-way&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
A. The Orlando Sentinel version of the Lyles’ report.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/2010/05/lyles-new-nasa-budget-harms-human-spaceflight.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Fspace%2Fspace_blog+%28Space+Blog+The+Write+Stuff%29
B. The Space News version, Human space flight has been short-changed.
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100510-human-spaceflight-shortchanged.html
C. From Space Politics.com, Lyles and his co-signers stop short of offering a prescription to re-balance NASA’s agenda, like maintaining Constellation.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/05/10/lyles-nasa-underfunded-and-out-of-balance/
2. From the American Thinker magazine, an op-ed outlining why President Obama’s space policy proposals can strike a cord with American conservatives. ” The solar system has been within our grasp since we walked away from Apollo. This budget has just opened the door to a private, commercial, free-market approach to moving out into space permanently. It is an opportunity that ought not to be ignored,” writes Alex Gimarc, a Space Frontier Foundation advocate.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/obama_space.html
3. From Spacepolicyonline.com, More coming Wednesday on U.S. space policy from the first and last men to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan. Both Apollo astronauts are scheduled to testify on Wednesday for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Others slated to testify include John Holdren, the White House science policy adviser; NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Norm Augustine, chair of the Augustine Committee.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=889:whos-who-of-space-to-testify-at-senate-commerce-hearing&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
4. Two reflections on space policy from The Space Review:
A. Destination Onward, President Obama’s space policy objectives verge widely from those of his presidential predecessors. He’s pitted program managers against researchers in a bid to deliver a constructive outcome — technical capabilities to expand the reach of space exploration, writes Doris Hamill, a tech manager at NASA’s Langley Research Center, “This will require profound changes in NASA’s culture,” Hamill writes. “The needed culture change cannot expect either group to give up things that make it good at what it does. On the contrary, both must understand and respect their differences but work together in spite of them.”
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1624/1
B. One Last Mission, Frequent contributor Taylor Dinerman examines the prospects for an extra space shuttle mission, using hardware that has been manufactured to assure a rescue capability for the final scheduled flight, Endeavour’s anticipated delivery of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station in late November. What would justify an extra flight? Dinerman considers a solar power experiment and suggests instead the launching of a Bigelow Aerospace- produced Sundancer module that could as a test bed for inflatable modules. Another prospect, reassemble the hardware without an orbiter into a prototype for a shuttle-derived heavy lift prototype.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1623/1
5. The countdown for the final scheduled mission of shuttle Atlantis is set to get under way today at 4 p.m., EDT. See spaceflightnow.com for updates.
A. From Collectspace.com, one of Atlantis’s solar rocket boosters includes a reusable segment from the ship’s original flight, STS 51J on Oct. 3, 1985.
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-051010a.html
B. From Space.com, The prospect of the final mission of Atlantis evokes reverence among those who fly and work on the 25-year-old shuttle orbiter.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/missionlaunches/reverence-final-shuttle-missions-100511.html
C. From Florida Today, Atlantis astronaut Garrett Reisman pays tribute to the Asaf Ramon, the son of the Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died in the shuttle Columbia accident in 2003. Asaf died as well in an Israeli Air Force F-16 training accident. Reisman taught Asaf Ramon to fly after the Columbia tragedy.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100511/NEWS02/5110327/Astronaut-uses-flight-as-tribute
6. From the New York Times, NASA sponsors the latest in a series of under sea missions by astronauts and other experts to learn about exploration. The team, including a pair of veteran astronauts, descended 65 feet below the ocean surface on Monday to a habitat for two weeks of simulated spacewalks and other activities that may help with the exploration of other planetary bodies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/science/space/11neemo.html?scp=2&sq=NASA&st=cse
7. From Scientific American, The detection of moons around extra-solar planets may soon be possible. The concept is intriguing. Of the extra solar planets discovered so far, most resemble Jupiter more than any other planet in our solar system. Studies of Jupiter and Saturn have revealed that while they are not habitable, some of their natural satellites may have conditions favorable for life.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=exomoons-habitability
8. From Discovery.com — Human stem cells develop differently in the absence of gravity, according to an Australian research group. The findings raise questions about how humans would fare during long space missions.
http://news.discovery.com/space/microgravity-stem-cells-space.html
9. From New Scientist, can one one theory from physics explain the universe, as Einstein hoped? Perhaps not,
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627591.200-the-imperfect-universe-goodbye-theory-of-everything.html
10. From The Hindu, India and Russia will combine efforts for the Chandrayaan II moon mission scheduled for 2013. Russia will contribute a lander.
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article425689.ece
11. From Spaceflightnow.com, Russia moves Soyuz rockets to the Guiana Space Center in South America for the launching of commercial satellites. Two of the venerable rockets will be assembled there for the first time this summer.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1005/10soyuz/
12. From The Washington Post, Robert J. Lang, a laser physicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, gave up his first professional calling to fold paper, as an origami master. Nothing seems too intricate for his handiwork.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/10/AR2010051003237.html
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