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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. The U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee divides along party lines over NASA spending priorities spanning 2016-17. The new European Space Agency leader favors human lunar base. Utah’s desert provides a backdrop for Mars mission simulations. Is warp speed possible? NASA’s out of fuel Messenger spacecraft crashes to Mercury’s surface. NASA executive is optimistic funds will be found to extend the long running Mars Opportunity rover and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions. Scientists propose an explanation for sun’s high temperature corona. Failed Russian Progress 59 resupply mission to the International Space Station is tracked closely by the U.S. Air Force. A laser positioned aboard the International Space Station could eliminate threatening orbital debris, according to researchers.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Intense partisanship over NASA resurfaces on House Committee
Spacepolicyonline.com (4/30): Members of the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee part ways along party lines Thursday on NASA priorities for 2016-17 in a key markup. The vote would divert funding requested by NASA for Earth science mission to planetary science and human exploration.
NASA Authorization Bill advances on party lines
Space News (4/30): NASA’s Earth sciences budget could be cut by from 18 to 32 percent if appropriators follow the authorization measure scripted by the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee on Thursday.
The Hill (4/29): In an op-ed, Texas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson denounces emerging partisanship in the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee over NASA priorities. Johnson is the panel’s leading Democrat.
Europe’s next space chief wants a moon colony on the lunar far side
Space.com (5/1): Johann-Dietrich Wörner, who becomes the European Space Agency’s director at the end of June, advocates a human base on the moon’s far side as the next destination for human explorers. The moon and its resources could serve as a “stepping stone” for future human advances into deep space. He made the case before the recent Space Foundation Symposium in Colorado Springs.
Remote Utah outpost serves as stand-in for surface of Mars
Associated Press via ABC News (5/1): The desert terrain of Utah is just right for six Belgian college students gathered at a Mars Society test site to simulate the exploration of the red planet. The exercise falls just ahead of the third annual Explore Mars, Inc. conference that opens in Washington on May 5 to discuss how to achieve such a journey.
Did NASA just figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light?
USA Today (4/30): NASA research efforts hints at possibility of warp drive for deep space travel.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Messenger mission ends with plunge into Mercury
Spaceflightnow.com (4/30): NASA’s long running Messenger mission at Mercury draws to a close Thursday as the out of fuel spacecraft crashes into the small planet’s far side.
Before impact, MESSENGER snapped this final photo
Discovery.com (4/30): The spacecraft’s final image shows the cratered and lumpy terrain of the vast “Shakespeare” crater crash site on Mercury.
NASA actively working to ‘save Opportunity and LRO’ from budget cutters’ axe
AmericaSpace.com (4/30): NASA’s Jim Green, director of the agency’s planetary sciences division, is optimistic the Mars Opportunity Rover and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions can be extended. Both face cancellation under the agency’s proposed 2016 budget. Opportunity has been roving the Martian surface since January 2004. LRO was launched into orbit around the moon in June 2009.
Mystery of sun’s corona solved? It’s nanoflares, scientists say
Los Angeles Times (4/28): Nothing on the sun is as hot as the upper fringes of the solar atmosphere. Once puzzled scientists believe the discrepancy is caused by small flares too tiny to be seen. Their conclusions come from observations and computer modeling. Temperatures regularly reach four million degrees.
Low Earth Orbit
U.S. Air Force tracking Russian space capsule as it drops to Earth
Associated Press via the Orlando Sentinel (4/30): Russia’s troubled Progress 59 re-supply mission to the six person International Space Station could plummet back into the Earth’s atmosphere between May 9 and 11, according to the U.S. Air Force, which is keeping close tabs on the Russian freighter.
Space Station could get laser cannon to destroy orbital debris
Space.com (4/30): Researchers suggest a laser mounted on the six person International Space Station could be used for destruction of orbital debris.
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