Tuesday’s CSExtra: Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan are scheduled for a Congressional encore as they head for a House hearing on space policy next week. More discussion of NASA’s future from The Space Review. Aboard the International Space Station, the Atlantis astronauts tackle the installation of Russia’s Rassvet mini research and docking module early Tuesday, following a successful but difficult spacewalk on Monday.
1. Atlantis and the International Space Station:
A. From spaceflightnow.com: Updates on Tuesday’s Rassvet installation activities.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts132/status.html
B. From spaceflightnow: Monday’s spacewalk furnishes space station with new communications antenna, though more work needed to finish the task.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts132/100517fd4/index2.html
2. From Spacepolicyonline.com: Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan are scheduled for an encore congressional appearance next week. On May 26 they will testify before the House Science and Technology Committee. Last week, they opposed the White House space policy in an appearance before the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will testify again as well.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/
A. From Space.com: Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart takes issue with colleagues Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan who urged the Senate to oppose White House space policy changes in a hearing last week. The U.S. is approaching a dead end in space, Schweickart writes in an open letter that was sent to U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/news/apollo-astronauts-split-obama-space-plan-100518.html
B. From the Ogden Standard – Review (Utah): U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, a member of the Senate appropriations committee, believes legislation he sponsored last week to preserve NASA’s Constellation Program could surface in Senate and House votes in the next few weeks. Some 2,000 jobs in the northern part of Utah are at stake.
http://www.standard.net/topics/business/2010/05/17/bennett-continues-fight-atk-jobs
C. From Spacepolicyonline.com: A list of policy shaping events around the country this week. They include an AIAA seminar on Thursday on the human rating of commercial spacecraft.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=898:events-of-interest-week-of-may-17-21-2010&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
3. Four essays from The Space Review:
A. In “The Long Goodbye,” Editor Jeff Foust reflects on the May 14 lift off of Atlantis on the orbiter’s final mission and what it means for a wistful Florida Space Coast. Atlantis may fly again in 2011, but the last missions of Discovery and Endeavour are likely coming by year’s end. “Events may give NASA and the space community a little more time to say goodbye to the shuttle, but that final farewell is coming, sooner more likely than later.”
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1629/1
B. In “Where are we Going in Space?” Philip Stooke, a geology professor at the University of Western Ontario, offers a speculative answer that includes test missions around the Earth, then around the moon in the 2022-2023 time frame, a journey deeper into space without a planetary destination in 2024, then a mission to rendezvous with an asteroid a year later. Then the Martian moons. However, Stooke believes an international return to the moon is inevitable.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1628/1
C. In “Beyond Together, Technology pull and mission push for NASA’s Future,” Doris Hamil, a technology manager who works for NASA’s Langley Research Center, outlines a working relationship between technology research set and engineering professionals. While the first creates mission possibilities, the second will drive the need for mission concepts that will make actual journeys of exploration possible.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1627/1
D. In “Comsats, Commercial Crew, Congress and the Future of American Space Exploration,” Alan Stern, space scientist and a pervious NASA associate administrator for space science, examines the benefits of a new commercial space transportation industry. One of those is a freeing of resources for deep space exploration by humans, he writes.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1626/1
4. From Spaceflightnow.com: Efforts to launch a Japanese mission to Venus are rained out on Monday. Next launch attempt to be announced.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/h2a/akatsuki/status.html
5. From Space.com: NASA will give a final listen this week for signs of life from the Mars Phoenix Lander. Perched near the north pole of the Red Planet, Phoenix remained silent during similar campaigns in January, February and April. Phoenix landed on May 25, 2008 to look for evidence of habitable conditions on Mars. The probe confirmed the presence of an underground ice sheet.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/missionlaunches/phoenix-mars-lander-final-check-100517.html
6. From the New York Times: Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory find hints as to why matter outranks “anti-matter” in our universe. If it didn’t, we would not be here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/space/18cosmos.html?ref=science
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