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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA’s work on the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket could increase support for a human return to the moon. U.S. space agency compiles advice on proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission, Astronaut Grand Challenge. Medical experts at work on deep space astronaut malaise. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, of Maryland, highlight progress of James Webb Space Telescope. JWST reforms prevented cancellation, says Mikulski, chair of Senate Appropriations Committee. Kepler’s Act 2. NASA research in deep space communications could open data gate. Meandering Martian rivers. European officials envision support for International Space Station extension. Russian cargo capsule departs the space station on Monday. Editorial endorses competing U.S. commercial space transportation systems. Space entrepreneur Elon Musk urges U.S. space resurgence, future missions to Mars.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Why not return to the Moon? (part 1)
The Space Review (2/3): Momentum for new human lunar missions has risen and fallen since Apollo. The development of NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket for a range of future human deep space missions, however, could sustain interest in new lunar missions, writes Anthony Young, an aerospace author. Future lunar missions would require an international partnership and commercial participation, adds Young in the first installment of a discussion on the topic.
NASA asteroid workshop urges wider collaboration, research investments
Aviation Week & Space Technology (1/31): Participants in NASA’s 2013 Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop urge refinements to the agency’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission and Asteroid Grand Challenges, strategies that would take humans beyond low Earth orbit and demonstrate techniques for deflecting potential impact threats. NASA posted the report last week.
Depression in space: How computer software could help astronauts cope
Space.com (2/3): Deep space could be a difficult place for astronauts to cope with the blues. However, medical researchers are addressing the prospect with a blend of psychology and advances in media. Stress, interpersonal conflict and depression are some of the symptoms experts with ties to Harvard are addressing.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Bolden, Mikulski tread carefully about budgets at JWST town hall
Space News (2/3): NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, an $8.8 billion Astrophysics flagship closing in on a 2018 launch, faces a tough funding challenge in the year ahead, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, tell a Goddard Space Flight Center audience on Monday. Goddard hosts the JWST project, which has been under scrutiny for cost and schedule. The designated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope promises new discoveries about the early universe and details about the habitability of alien planets.
NASA Administrator Bolden, Senator Mikulski view progress on James Webb Space Telescope
NASA (1/3): Workers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center receive thanks on Monday from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, of Maryland, for their work to develop, test and assemble components of the James Webb Space Telescope. “The James Webb Space Telescope will keep us in the lead for astronomy for decades to come, spurring the innovation and technology that keep America’s economy rolling,” said Mikulski. “The recent completion of the critical design review for Webb, and the delivery of all its instruments to Goddard, mark significant progress for this mission,” added Bolden.
NASA highlights James Webb Space Telescope progress
NASA (1/3): Chris Scolese, director of the Goddard Space Flight Center; NASA Administrator Charles Bolden; and U. S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski discuss work on the James Webb Space Telescope via a YouTube presentation.
Mikulski to JWST workforce: “I saved you from the Tea Party”
Spacepolicyonline.com (2/3): NASA and the James Webb Space Telescope project deserve praise for high levels of international cooperation, U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski tells a Goddard Space Flight Center audience. Maryland’s Mikulski serves as chair of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. Her concerns about JWST cost and schedule growth prompted a NASA overhaul that may have saved the $8 billion project from cancellation, said Mikulski.
Space Review (2/3): NASA’s productive Kepler mission will get a second chance at discovery, following the loss of critical pointing capabilities. Launched in 2009, Kepler logged some 3,500 alien planet candidates before experiencing a crippling reaction wheel failure last May. A call for proposals from NASA last year generated a new strategy that will use the pressure of solar photons to take on some of the aiming requirements, explains TSR editor Jeff Foust.
NASA space communications and navigation head points way to future
Spaceflight Insider (2/3): Badri Younes, NASA deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigations, discusses solutions for the growing communications demands on U.S. spacecraft in Earth orbit and the coming demand from future deep space missions. New technologies in the test and demonstration phases include laser communications systems.
Evidence for ancient meandering rivers of Mars
Discovery.com (2/3): NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spots new evidence for past flowing water on the red planet in the rugged land forms. Ancient river beds are now twisted ridges, created after eons of erosion processes.
Low Earth Orbit
The International Space Station: a case for peace
Space News (2/3): In an op-ed, Jörg Feustel-Büechl, former human spaceflight lead for the European Space Agency, predicts favorable support from Europe for a four year extension of International Space Station operations. However, he notes it will be difficult financially. Finally, he endorses the partnership for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Obama administration is proposing a 2020 to 2024 extension for the space station as part of its 2015 budget planning.
Russian freighter undocks from orbital station
Ria Novosti, of Russia (2/3): Russia’s Progress 52 cargo capsule departed the International Space Station on Monday. A replacement, Progress 54, is expected to lift off and dock with the orbiting science lab on Wednesday.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Space News (2/3): In an op-ed, Mike Lopez-Alegria, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and a record setting former NASA astronaut, outlines efforts to make safety a high priority as the U.S. aerospace industry partners with NASA to develop competing commercial space transportation services. “If we want America to retain its leadership in space, we must take full advantage of those concepts that are so fundamentally and uniquely American: innovation, entrepreneurship and competition,” he writes.
Elon Musk on state of U.S. space exploration: Being at Putin’s mercy “not a good thing”
CBS News (1/3): In an interview, Musk envisions Mars as a destination for humans launched with rockets that make Apollo’s Saturn V look small. That should follow new U.S. capabilities to reach low Earth orbit independently of the Russians, he says.
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