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Wednesday’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. In Washington, the White House joins with NASA in issuing a “Grand Challenge,” or call to the world’s experts for help in identifying the many asteroids that pose a collision threat to the Earth and devising a deflection strategy. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation may face budget cuts. NASA’s latest astronaut candidates place men and women on an equal professional footing, which was not always the case. In Kazakhstan, the Baikonur Cosmodrome begins to lose significance as Russia looks to a new indigenous launch complex. NASA is over estimating the radiation threat faced by humans bound for Mars, writes Mars Society president Robert Zubrin.
1. From Space.com: The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA extend a new Grand Challenge. They ask experts from around the world to help address the threat posed by asteroids and other Near Earth Objects that might collide with the Earth. NASA expects to merge that goal into its own deep space human exploration plans.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/21610-nasa-asteroid-threat-grand-challenge.html
A. From The Washington Post: Efforts to address the hazards posed by Near Earth Objects present significant challenges, including identification of the smallest asteroids and determining their erratic trajectories, according to a Washington Post assessment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/wp/2013/06/18/asteroid-redirect-mission-impossible
B. From Discovery.com: NASA looks for expertise beyond the agency and U. S. borders in its quest to address the collision threat posed by Near Earth Objects.
C. From The Science Insider: The Earth faces a significant collision threat from yet-to-be-identified Near Earth Objects. Establishing greater awareness may bring wider support for NASA’s human deep space exploration plans.
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/06/nasa-asks-for-help-finding-aster.html?ref=hp
2. From Spacepolicyonline.com: In Washington, House appropriators consider spending cuts for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The cuts are ill advised at a time when the nation is placing new responsibilities on the sector, according to a top space executive.
3. From National Geographic. Earlier this week, NASA announced the selection of eight new astronauts, half of them women. The hiring’s suggest women as much as men are up to the rigors of space exploration, an outlook that was not always the case.
A. From The Washington Post: NASA’s smallest ever group of new astronaut hires includes women who fly military aircraft, provide instruction at a prestigious U. S. medical school and represent the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration abroad.
4. From The New York Times: In Kazakhstan, the fortunes of the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome are fading as Russia turns to Vostochny for a new national launch complex. Yuri Gagarin was launched from Baikonur. Today, Baikonur is the launch complex of necessity for America’s astronauts.
5. From Space News: The radiation threat faced by humans en route to Mars is not as hazardous as NASA portrays, writes Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, in an op-ed. Zubrin maintains that NASA has overstated the threat based on readings gathered by the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity rover as it sped towards the red planet in 2011-12.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/35865curiositys-radiation-results#.UcE9NufQq6o
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