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Monday’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe, plus a roundup of weekend activities. NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver addresses the status of NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect (Retrieval) Mission and partnerships with the commercial sector in achieving a range of agency objectives at a Space Foundation conference. Houston editorial calls for stable long term NASA funding. A Russian Progress cargo capsule docks with the International Space Station late Saturday, delivering tools to address a worrisome NASA space suit leak. Space Station astronaut Luca Parmitano remotely controls a robotic rover at NASA’s Ames Research Center, a test of technologies that explorers might use in orbits around the moon, asteroids or Mars. Mission architecture is key to reaching Mars with explorers. NASA probes unravel Van Allen Belt mystery. How NASA keeps its workforce engaged. Recalling primates Able and Baker and others from the animal kingdom who paved the way to space for humans. LEGO enhances New York City Enterprise display. A look a space events scheduled for the week ahead.
1. From Space Politics.com, July 27: NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver searches for a way to bring the public/private sectors together on future space exploration, strategies that include the agency’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission with efforts to establish a lunar base. “There are a few people — you can argue staff or members on the Hill in a few key places — who think that this is going to keep us from going back to the Moon,” Garver told the Space Foundation’s New Spaces 2013 conference. “Our challenge is to help people understand that is not at all what this mission (ARM) will do. This doesn’t sidetrack anything.”
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2013/07/27/garver-on-nasas-opportunities-and-challenges/
A. From Space.com, July 26: NASA’s open call for proposals to help shape a U. S. Asteroid Redirect Mission has generated more than 400 responses, NASA said Friday. The call was issued June 18 and the large number signals a growing interest, according to NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver in remarks before the Space Foundation’s New Space 2013 conference. The ideas were “overwhelmingly positive,” notes Garver.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/22135-nasa-asteroid-exploration-ideas.html
B. From Discovery.com, July 26: NASA plans a public forum in Houston, Sept. 30- Oct. 2, to discuss asteroid mission suggestions generated by NASA’s June request for proposals. More than 400 proposals are received.
C. From Space News, July 26: NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver suggests NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission look to a larger target than the 7-10 meter near Earth object proposed by the agency earlier this year. Some in Congress would rather see NASA aim for the moon, rather than corral an asteroid robotically and direct it into a stable lunar orbit. Garver spoke at the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace conference in San Jose, Calif., last week.
D. From Space News, July 26: NASA is looking hard at how it can work with commercial initiatives to accomplish new space objectives, Dennis Stone, program integration manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program, explains to a session of the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual NewSpace conference in San Jose, Calif.
E. From Spacepolicyonline.com, July 26: NASA’s proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission proposal has been greeted with rejection or indifference, so far, in the House and Senate. Beyond the partisanship in Washington, however, the mission goal of introducing technologies that could protect the Earth from a destructive asteroid impact, gathers enthusiasm.
2. From The Houston Chronicle, July 26: In an editorial, the Chronicle calls on policy makers to establish adequate stable funding for NASA, allocating enough money to support commercial human missions to Earth orbit so the agency can focus on human deep space exploration.
http://www.chron.com/default/article/NASA-s-mission-Stability-4689890.php
3. From Space.com, July 27: A Russian Progress cargo capsule docks with the International Space Station late Saturday. Among the 2.8 tons of supplies, a NASA tool kit to address a water leak in the U. S. space suit worn by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano on July 16.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/22145-russian-rogress-space-station-docking.html
4. From NBC Bay Area, of California, July 27: On Friday, International Space Station astronaut Luca Parmitano, remotely controlled a small robot, the K-10, on the grounds of NASA’s Ames Research Center. The exercise is part of a development effort at NASA. It could lay the groundwork for U. S. astronauts aboard a spacecraft in orbit around the moon to maneuver a robot on the lunar far side. In this case, the exercise involves tasks to establish a radio telescope observatory.
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/NASA-Tests-Remotely-Powered-Robot-217148581.html
A. From The Associated Press via The Houston Chronicle, July 26: NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg, a crew member aboard the International Space Station, will deliver a recorded summer commencement address to the University of North Dakota on Aug. 2. Nyberg is an alum.
http://www.chron.com/default/article/Astronaut-alum-to-give-speech-for-UND-graduation-4688433.php
5. From The Huffington Post, July 26: Mars may be moving within the reach of human explorers. Yet there are many issues to settle, including the technique for in space propulsion, writes R. Joseph Cassady, a board member of ExploreMars and executive director, Advanced Programs Engineering at Aerojet Rocketdyne.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/r-joseph-cassady/why-space-architecture-ma_b_3659645.html
6. From Physics World, July 26: NASA’s Van Allen Probes Mission, two spacecraft launched in late August 2012, unravel an ongoing mystery over the acceleration of electrons trapped in the Earth’s Van Allen belts. The acceleration process relies on wave particle interactions.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/jul/26/van-allen-electrons-are-accelerated-from-within
7. From The Washington Post, July 26: NASA is striving to keep its workforce engaged, as the agency’s missions change and the U. S. adjusts to an era of tight budgets, Jeri Buchholz, NASA’s chief human capital officer, explains. Much depends on a “social” working environment and a common desire among those who seek a position at NASA — a desire nourished since childhood to work for the agency.
8. From The Los Angeles Times, July 17: Recalling primates Able and Baker, who helped the U. S. blaze a trail into space. The two monkeys put an appealing face on the use of animals to research the risks. A new report examines the strategy and why their 1959 rocket launch may have marked a change in prior practices that were intended to keep handlers from getting close to their animal subjects.
9. From Collectspace.com, July 26: LEGO builders fashion a model of the shuttle test orbiter Enterprise at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City. The real orbiter is displayed nearby.
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-072613a.html
10. From Spacepolicyonline.com, July 28: A look at major space activities scheduled for the week ahead. Congress is in session this week, before a lengthy recess.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/space-policy-events-for-the-week-of-july-29-august-2-2013
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