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Tuesday’s CSExtra includes updates on plans by NASA to restore the cooling system aboard the International Space Station after a disruption on Saturday. The first of two spacewalks NASA astronauts is set for early Friday. NASA and the European Space Agency announce plans for a joint Mars mission. Plus, more commentary and reporting on NASA’s future course and the impacts on workers and their families.
1. From Spaceflightnow.com: NASA’s Mission Control plans spacewalks for Friday and possibly Monday to repair the cooling system aboard the International Space Station. The system malfunction late Saturday has constrained the use of electricity on the space station, home to a half-dozen U.S. and Russian astronauts. The excursions had been tentatively planned for Thursday and Saturday, but NASA decided late Monday it needed more time for to prepare.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp24/100802evaprep/
2. From Space News: NASA and the European Space Agency select the science instruments for a 2016 Mars mission, the first flight under a joint agreement between the two space agencies to share resources.
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100802-payload-selected-mars-mission.html
Two from The Space Review:
3. In “Parsing the Policy,” Space Review editor Jeff Foust offers a look at the White House thinking that underlies the national space policy changes announced a month ago. Foust makes his way to the sources in a bid to explain. For example, what does the phrase “responsible activity” imply in an age when orbital space is filling with hazardous debris and those with the prowess to get to orbit also decide to test anti-satellite weapons.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1673/1
4. In “Space travel as Exploration,” writer Stephen J. Pyne, a life sciences professor at Arizona State University, turns to the roots of the Space Age in the late 1950s to examine the reasons for space exploration. Werner von Braun suggested the purpose of space exploration was colonization; James van Allen suggested it was science; William Pickering, the lesser known director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, suggested it was exploration. Do their modern day counterparts know what the pioneers meant? Does it matter? Payne looks for an answer.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1674/2
5. From Space.com: The sun unleashes a large coronal mass ejection early Sunday, and it’s headed for Earth, where it is likely to turn on the aurora and possibly disrupt satellite communications.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/scienceastronomy/sun-eruption-aurora-activity-100802.html
A. From USA Today: The CME should fire up the Northern Lights.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/08/solar-blast-may-fire-up-northern-lights/1
6. From the New York Times: A look at the media stir created by Harvard-Smithsonian Center astrophysicist Dimitar Sasselov on July 16, when he discussed NASA’s Kepler Mission at Oxford University. The Kepler telescope is more than a year into a mission to survey the Milky Way for evidence of rocky (Earth-like) planets in the habitable zones of other stars. Sasselov’s presentation set off a furor about his claims, and the media’s response.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/science/space/03kepler.html?_r=2&ref=science
7. From Florida Today: Central Florida schools brace for changing enrollments as shuttle program workers begin to lose their jobs. “Parents would come in and register their kids over the summer and they would say, ‘We hope we can be here all year,’ ” one principal tells Florida Today. Plans to retire the shuttle next year are leading to a major layoff this fall.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100803/NEWS01/8030317/Brevard-County-Schools-bracing-for-space-layoffs
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