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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a long time part of NASA’s appropriations process, will not seek re-election in 2016. Two recent Washington space advocacy activities signal support for the human settlement of space. Young engineer Molly White works on the development of NASA’s Orion capsule. Who’s legally entitled to lunar resources? Scientists offer new thoughts on the mystery behind the bright spots on the large asteroid Ceres. Saturn’s moon Titan: just right for a different kind of life process. Catching up with China’s Yutu rover. The Canadian Space Agency has a new president, Sylvain Laporte. Friends remember Norm Carlson, long time Kennedy Space Center test director, and his traditions.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Mikulski to retire from Senate
Space News (3/2): U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, of Maryland, announced Monday she will not seek re-election in 2016. Mikulski is considered a strong advocate for Earth sciences and space exploration. Since her election in 1986, Mikulski has been a part of the NASA appropriations process in Congress, supporting the International Space Station and Space Launch System as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and future James Webb Space Telescope. Maryland is home to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Mikulski wishes to work on legislative business rather than raise funds and campaign, according to the report.
The Space Review (3/2): Two space advocacy initiatives surfaced in Washington as February came to a close, both urging the human settlement of space and an expanding economic sphere. Both the Alliance for Space Development and the Pioneering Space National Summit avoided the call for a larger NASA budget. The ASD, for instance, called for significant financial prizes to encourage new reusable human space launch capabilities and use of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services model to ensure that the International Space Station can transition from government to commercial oversight. “Whether that common cause and shared objectives can translate to legislative progress remains to be seen,” writes TSP editor Jeff Foust in an essay.
Journey to Mars: Meet Molly White, an engineer working on spacecraft Orion
Washington Post (3/2): White recalls the indescribable excitement of watching the NASA/Lockheed Martin Orion capsule descend to Earth on Dec. 5, following its first unpiloted test flight. White, a young NASA engineer, works on the capsule’s heat shield at the Johnson Space Center. Orion is under development to start U.S. explorers on future missions of deep space exploration.
Understanding the legal status of the Moon
The Space Review (3/2): Attorney Urbano Fuentes examines the urgency in addressing a legal basis for extracting the resources of the moon, including the fusion fuel Helium-3, through the principles and limitations of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the Moon Treaty of 1979. “There is still lot of work to do in order to develop an efficient way to prospect the Moon,” he writes.
Umnanned Deep Space Exploration
Hunt for dwarf planet Ceres’ mysterious water begins
Discovery.com (3/3): The approach of NASA’s Dawn probe to the large asteroid Ceres has scientists adjusting their assessments of curious bright spots on the cratered terrain. The largest does not appear to be the product of cyrovolcanism, according to one scientist involved with the project. But there is continued speculation that Ceres hosts ice and possibly liquid water in its subsurface. More answers may emerge by late April. Dawn is on course to fall within the gravitational influence of Ceres on Mar. 6 and begin to orbit the object at steadily lower altitudes.
NASA is about to open a 4.6-billion-year-old time capsule
Zocalo Public Square via Houston Chronicle (3/2): Marc Rayman, the Dawn mission director, explains how the spacecraft’s stay at Ceres could shed new light on the earliest days of the solar system.
Life as we don’t know it? Experts say it’s possible on Titan
NBC News (3/2): Distant Saturn’s moon Titan is frigid and awash in liquid hydrocarbons. But could it host some form of life, if that life was a different kind of life than found on Earth? Publishing in the journal Science Advances, experts from Cornell University in chemical molecular dynamics and chemical engineering are among those who evaluate the prospects.
China’s moon rover Yutu functioning but stationary
Xinhuanet, of China: (3/3): China’s Yutu rover, which soft landed on the moon in late 2013, remains immobile but electronically alert well beyond its three month design life, according to a scientist familiar with the project. Chinese experts believe Yutu was hobbled by a rock. China is the third country, along with the U. S. and former Soviet Union, to achieve a moon landing.
Low Earth Orbit
Laporte named President of Canadian Space Agency
Space News (3/2): Sylvain Laporte, a former patents commissioner and registrar of trademarks, has been selected as the next Canadian Space Agency president by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
NASA test director was “go” for launch, then beans
Florida Today (3/2): Norm Carlson, retired shuttle test director at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, started a popular tradition, serving beans after every NASA space shuttle launch. The Titusville, Fla., resident died on Sunday from complications of congestive heart failure. He was 81. Carlson, lead test director for the Apollo 11 launching, had a reputation for keeping a “cool head” during his many shuttle program countdowns.
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