Monday’s CSExtra features reports and commentary on U.S. space policy and NASA’s future. Doubts about President Obama’s 2025 asteroid vision. A former Mercury astronaut urges NASA to keep flying the shuttle. Japan makes strides in space, though faced with tight budgets. Elon Musk’s formula for success at SpaceX.
1. From USA Today: President Obama’s 2025 asteroid ambitions are as unrealistic as John F. Kennedy’s lunar ambitions of the early 1960s, USA Today reports. Though a thrilling prospect, the obstacles include funding, radiation hazards and a trip time of five to six months. Then there is an election cycle that encompasses four future administrations.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2010-06-20-asteroid-obama-nasa-plan_N.htm
2. From MSNBC: John Glenn, a retired U.S. Senator and the first American to orbit the Earth as a Mercury astronaut, urges NASA to extend space shuttle operations beyond the program’s planned retirement. Glenn worries that problems with Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft could make the NASA-led International Space Station inaccessible to astronauts in the shuttle’s absence. That could spell doom for the station, says Glenn, who at 77 became the oldest human to fly in space.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37817608/ns/technology_and_science-space//
3. From Time/CNN: Japan surges in space with the recent deployment of a solar sail and the successful recovery of the Hayabusa spacecraft after a seven-year mission to an asteroid. The strides coincide with major budget pressures.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1997768,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
4. From the Galveston Daily News of Texas: Houston bracing for job losses as Constellation winds down, shuttle retires. Lockheed Martin, Boeing and United Space Alliance top the list of those affected.
http://www.galvnews.com/story/158433
5. From Pehub.com: Why is SpaceX enjoying success? Founder Elon Musk says in part because his formula for operations is modeled after Silicon Valley where operations are integrated vertically. Think Intel, Google and Apple.
http://www.pehub.com/74756/elon-musk-on-why-his-rockets-are-faster-cheaper-and-lighter-than-what-youve-seen-before/
6. From Spacepolicyonline.com: A list of events this week influencing space policy. The web site forecasts a relatively “quiet” week.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/
7. From Rianovosti: A converted Soviet ballistic missile hauls a German radar imaging satellite into orbit.
http://en.rian.ru/science/20100621/159506248.html
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