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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from around the globe. NASA round table outlines enabling technologies for future human space exploration. Budget uncertainties rival technical challenges in U.S. human deep space exploration plans. NASA looks to private sector partnerships to confront budget constraints. Bigelow Aerospace urges property rights in exchange for expansion of commercial space transportation services to deep space. Representatives from five space agencies plan Washington forum to discuss future cooperation. President Obama honors NASA’s Kepler space telescope inspiration. NASA’s next Mars mission, MAVEN, to explore red planet transition. Cassini snaps magnificent Saturn with Earth in the background. Astronomers identify new class of quasars. Comet Encke coming to skies soon. China outlines space station plans. New Challenger docu-drama debuts Saturday. Soviet era cosmonaut Alexander Serebrov dies. NASA’s Robonaut awaits legs. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to host Washington forum for Commercial Crew Program participants. Russia reports worker deaths at Plesetsk cosmodrome.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Removing the barriers to deep space exploration
NASA (11/12): NASA’s Washington round table forum on the future of human space exploration on Tuesday is available on video replay. NASA exploration chief William Gerstenmaier hosts executives from Aerojet Rocketdyne, ATK, Boeing and Lockheed Martin for discussions on the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket, Orion crew exploration capsule and other technologies to open deep space to humans.
“They upped the game on me”: sequestration and the challenges of funding NASA’s exploration program
Spacepolitics.com (11/13): U.S. budget instabilities/uncertainties begin to rival technical challenges in advancing human space exploration, William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human space exploration, notes at a Washington round table on the agency’s future plans. “I learned to live and operate under continuing resolutions, and I thought I had that mastered,” said Gerstenmaier. “Then we got sequester, and they upped the game on me.” Gerstenmaier was joined by executives from Aerojet Rocketdyne, ATK, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Companies want a piece of the moon
Discovery News (11/13): A study from Bigelow Aerospace urges NASA to expand the commercial cargo and crew services it has or is forging to the International Space Station to deep space destinations, including the moon, in exchange for property rights. Robert Bigelow, president of the company, says he will ask the FAA to explore the issue. NASA commissioned the report.
Gannet News Service (11/12): NASA’s ties to commercial partners is likely to rise in response to budget pressures, according to an industry report issued on Tuesday by Bigelow Aerospace. “If there is no outside help over the next 10 years, only a very modest human exploration effort is possible,” Robert Bigelow, company president told a Capitol Hill news conference. During the Apollo years, NASA’s share of the federal budget stood at 4.5 percent. Now less than 0.5 percent, it may decline further.
U.S. and non U.S. space agency reps to discuss international cooperation in space
Spacepolicyonline.com (11/12): Representatives from NASA as well as the Canadian, European, Japanese and French space agencies will discuss future cooperation in space exploration at a Washington forum on Nov. 19. The American Astronautical Society hosts.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
NASA Ames’ persistent star: Kepler’s principle investigator recognized by President Obama
Mountainview Voice, of California (11/12): William Boruki, the moving force behind NASA’s Kepler space telescope, is recognized for his ground breaking work by President Obama. Boruki’s idea for a telescope that could monitor distant starts for optical evidence of alien worlds took some convincing. He received the Samuel J. Heyman Service of America Medal from the President.
Science geek Seth MacFarlane donates to Carl Sagan’s notes collection
Washington Post (11/12): Money from MacFarlane, creator of the Family Guy, enables Smithsonian Institution to purchase personal papers of the late U.S. astronomer Carl Sagan. MacFarlane says he concerned for a fading science literacy in the United States.
What happened to Mars? A planetary mystery.
NASA (11/12): NASA’s science news outlines the MAVEN flight and the Martian transition the spacecraft was designed to unravel. NASA’s next mission to Mars, MAVEN, is set for a Nov. 18 lift off.
Saturn, Earth Shine in Amazing New Photo by NASA Probe
Space.com (11/12): A photo montage from NASA’s Saturn orbiting Cassini spacecraft shows the ringed planet, the sun, Venus, the Earth and the moon and Mars.
The New York Times (11/12): Stunning montage of Saturn and its rings created from 141 high resolution images taken on July 19: The field of view includes the Earth.
New Type of Quasar Found, Baffling Scientists
Space.com (11/12): Astronomers have identified an incredibly bright, new class of galactic core powered by super massive black holes. Seventeen of the objects, which challenge the current understanding of black hole physics, have been identified so far, according to British astronomer Patrick Hall, who authored a study on the discovery.
‘Old Faithful’ comet Encke makes appearance in November night sky
Space.com (11/12): The approach of comet ISON may be grabbing the headlines. But Encke’s comet is making a repeat appearance as well in the night skies of the Earth in the northern hemisphere. Encke loops around the sun once every 3.3 years.
Low Earth Orbit
China unveils space station research plans
Space News (11/12): China looks to fill an orbital research void as the U.S. led International Space Station runs its course. China Space Station will operate for a decade beginning in 2022, explained Gu Yidong, president of the China Society of Space Research, at the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research conference in Orlando, Fla. Nov. 3 to 8.
New docu-drama revisits the Challenger O-ring disaster
Washington Post (11/11): The Discovery Channel offers new production on the 1986 loss of the shuttle Challenger and the seven astronauts on aboard. “The Challenger Disaster ” premiers Saturday on the Science and Discovery channels.
Soviet cosmonaut Alexander Serebrov dies
Itar-Tass, of Russia (12/11): Serebrov, a Soviet era cosmonaut and four time space traveler died Tuesday. He was 69. Serebrov logged 373 days aboard a succession of Soviet space stations, including Mir.
NASA’s biggest astronaut: Robonaut to take giant leap into space with new legs
ABC News.com (11/8): Robonaut, a NASA/ General Motors collaboration on a legless humanoid robot “joined” the International Space Station crew in 2011. Robonaut is the centerpiece of a long running experiment that investigates human/machine interactions in space. Next, year, Robonaut will receive legs. Eventually, he’ll join astronauts outside the space station for a spacewalk.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
NASA Administrator Bolden to hail success of commercial cargo program
NASA (11/8): NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and staff will discuss the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program from Washington today at 11:30 a.m., EST. NASA’s efforts fostered two U.S. companies capable of delivering supplies to the International Space Station, Orbital Sciences Corp. and Space X.
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