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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says he is taking NASA Advisory Council concerns about the Asteroid Redirect Mission in stride. An editorial urges U.S. cooperation with China to deal with the costs, risks of future space exploration. Russian space agency chief says Roscosmos plans to land cosmonauts on the moon in 2028-29. Law professor predicts changes in U.S. tax policy as people migrate to space to live and work. NASA’s New Horizons transmits color images of Pluto and moon Charon. A vast infrared survey of galaxies offers no hint of extraterrestrial intelligence, say Penn State researchers. Europe’s Rosetta mission captures close-up comet images. Mysterious dark matter behaves not so dark. United Launch Alliance outlines rocket reuse strategies. Commercial cargo launch sends more than 4,300 pounds of supplies on three-day trek to the International Space Station. SpaceX Falcon 9 first-stage landing crashes onto barge.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Bolden not concerned about ARM criticism
Space News (4/14): In comments at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says he’s not concerned by a finding from the NASA Advisory Council earlier this month that concluded the agency should not pursue the Asteroid Redirect Mission. ARM would test new solar electrical propulsion technologies to robotically gather a boulder from the surface of a large asteroid and maneuver the rock into orbit around the moon as a destination for U.S. astronauts. The astronauts would be launched on a test mission aboard NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket and Orion crew capsule. The NAC urged NASA to aim for the Martian environs instead.
Editorial: Putting space above politics
Aviation Week & Space Technology (4/15): An editorial calls on the U.S. to partner with China in space by overlooking international tensions, just as it has with Russia and the former Soviet Union for more than four decades. “China is going to be a major player in space, with or without NASA,” according to the editorial. “It is better for the U.S. to have some influence on how it enters the club.”
Russia plans manned mission to Moon in 2029-2030 per space agency chief
TASS, of Russia (4/14): Russia’s federal space agency, Roscosmos, intends to land on the moon with human explorers in 2028-29, agency chief Igor Komarov said on Tuesday.
IRS in space: How will we tax a Mars mission?
Space.com (4/14): Today, U.S. income taxes are due for 2014. Adam Chodorow, a law professor at Arizona State University in Tempe, envisions significant changes in tax policy as Earthlings take to space to live and work.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
NASA’s New Horizons sends back its first color image of Pluto and Charon
Washington Post (4/14): NASA’s New Horizon’s mission spacecraft transmits initial color photographs of distant Pluto and Pluto’s moon Charon. New Horizons is to carry out the first ever flyby of the Pluto system on July 14.
Among millions of galaxies, survey finds no obvious signs of life
NBC News (4/14): Scientists from Pennsylvania State University used NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Satellite to seek evidence of infrared emissions from technologies developed by intelligence civilizations across a vast number of galaxies. No luck, they report in a scientific journal.
Comet comes to life in amazing Rosetta spacecraft photo montage
Space.com (4/14): The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission spacecraft offers a montage of close-up images of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken between late January and late March. Rosetta rendezvoused with 67P in August to accompany the comet around the sun.
Wait a minute, dark matter may not be dark after all
Discovery.com (4/14): Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and European Very Large Telescope suggest conventional ideas about dark matter may be off base. Dark matter represents 85 percent of the mass of the known universe. Without dark matter, the large galaxies would fly apart.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
ULA chief explains reusability and innovation of new rocket
Spaceflightnow.com (4/14): United Launch Alliance’s president and CEO Tony Bruno explains the joint venture’s reusability strategy for the new Vulcan launch vehicle. Bruno unveiled details as part of the Space Symposium underway this week in Colorado Springs.
Falcon 9 makes hard landing after launching Dragon to ISS
Space News (4/14): After a one-day launch delay for stormy weather, SpaceX successfully launched its sixth cargo delivery to the International Space Station on Tuesday. However, a post-launch attempt to land the first stage on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast ended with a collision.
SpaceX comes close to recovering rocket
New York Times (4/14): A commercial rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on Tuesday sent 4,300 pounds of supplies on a three-day trip to the International Space Station. Cargo, including crew supplies, space station hardware and scientific experiments, is on course to reach the six-person orbiting science laboratory early Friday. The latest attempt by SpaceX, the launch services provider, to recover the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage with a vertical landing on an unmanned barge in the Atlantic Ocean was unsuccessful.
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