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Monday’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related events from across the nation, plus a roundup of weekend happenings. Florida wrestles with economic obstacles as NASA’s shuttle program winds to an end. In New Mexico, the facility that hosts an emergency shuttle runway and training facilities prepares to close. An asteroid soars close to Earth today. NASA will turn to Russia if problems require the rescue of the final shuttle crew. Experts say investments in new rocket technology could lower launch costs. SpaceShipTwo continues to check off the flight tests. The orbital debris threat grows. Two orbital spacecraft inherit a new lunar mission. Orbiter Discovery, retired in March, undergoes museum preps. Major space events scheduled for the week ahead.
1. From the St. Petersburg Times of Florida, June 26: The end of NASA’s shuttle program is forcing Florida’s Space Coast to carve out a new identity, as estimates of job losses reach into the thousands. The economic ripple will affect everyone from restaurants workers to dive shop owners. NASA’s workforce is looking to commercial space and the aviation industry for new opportunities.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/space/article1177218.ece
A. From the Orlando Sentinel, June 26: The U. S. military faces rising launch costs as NASA’s shuttle era comes to a close. Component suppliers are raising costs as uncertainties over the future of their NASA business customer base increases. The Pentagon is projecting a 50 percent cost increase over the next four years. That could mean that those facing layoffs as the shuttle program ends next month will have a difficult time finding new work in Central Florida, the Sentinel reports.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-military-missile-business-20110626,0,7372393.story
B. From the Alamogordo Daily News of New Mexico, June 25: The White Sands Space Harbor of New Mexico, which hosts a NASA shuttle runway, will close with the end of the final mission. Shuttle Columbia returned from orbit there in 1982. The space harbor has long served as a key facility to train astronauts for shuttle landings. Workers are expected to retire or move on to other jobs.
http://www.alamogordonews.com/ci_18353383
2. From Discovery.com, June 24: The asteroid 2011 MD will pass close to the Earth on Monday, inside the orbit of some satellites and close enough to get a gravitational kick from the Earth as it moves away.
http://news.discovery.com/space/visualizing-asteroid-2011-md-zip-past-earth-animation-110624.html
A. From The Dailygalaxy.com: The house-sized asteroid was discovered last week by the Harvard Minor Planet Center and is larger than most that skim past the Earth. The miss distance is less than 10,000 miles.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/06/a-massive-volcanic-eruption-has-taken-place-in-eritrea-sunday-june-11-2011the-eruption-in-eritrea-could-be-the-biggest-volca.html#more
3. From Florida Today, June 25: NASA’s last shuttle flight will be the first since the 2003 Columbia tragedy to fly without another shuttle orbiter and crew waiting in the wings to mount a rescue if there is a problem. Instead, the four Atlantis astronauts will count on a succession of Russian Soyuz flights to bring them back to Earth. The string of flights would span nearly a year.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110626/NEWS02/106260333/NASA-back-up-plan-Russia-rescue?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Space%20News
A. From USAToday, Jan. 26: The launch of NASA’s final space shuttle mission will draw an estimated one million visitors to Central Florida.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2011-06-22-Shuttle-ticket-prices_n.htm
4. From USAToday, June 25: The nation’s space ambitions could be enriched with investments in propulsion technology, according to Johnathan Coopersmith, an expert on the topic from Texas A & M University, and others. However, lean budgets could stall the investments in technologies that could dramatically lower future launch costs.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2011-06-25-space-rockets_n.htm
5. From Florida Today, June 24: Columnist John Kelly champions the human drive to reach for the stars — whether the momentum comes from the private sector, the military or NASA.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110626/COLUMNISTS0405/106260312/John-Kelly-Politics-won-t-stop-space-innovation?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Space%20News
6. From Space.com, June 24: SpaceShipTwo, also known as VSS Enterprise, logs more successful glide tests in the Mojave Desert, including drops on successive days. Powered test flights lie ahead. Eventually, Virgin Galactic intends to fly passengers into suborbital space at $200,000 a seat.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/12073-spaceshiptwo-virgin-galactic-private-spacecraft-test-flights.html
7. From Spacepolicyonline.com, June 24: The risk posed by orbital debris is on the rise, according to the latest editions of the Space Security Index, as prepared by the Secure World Foundation and Canada’s Project Ploughshares. Some of the increase is attributed to the 2007 Chinese ASAT test and successive collisions between the original debris.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1646:space-debris-in-leo-continues-to-increase&catid=75:news&Itemid=68
8. From the Coalition for Space Exploration, June 25: Two NASA spacecraft, launched in 2009 to observe the Earth’s aurora, will study the moon under a new mission phase. The Acceleration Reconnection Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun, or ARTEMIS, spacecraft will study the electrical effects on the lunar surface as well as the moon’s internal structure.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/blog/new-visitors-arrive-at-the-moon
9. From Collectspace.com, June 26: Orbiter Discovery, back from her final mission in March, is undergoing preparations for public display at the National Air and Space Museum annex. The spacecraft should be ready for her move from the Kennedy Space Center to its new display venue in April.
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-062611a.html
10. From Spacepolicyonline.com, June 26: House appropriators deny the Department of Energy funding to produce Plutonium 238 for the radioisotope thermoelectric generators needed to power NASA’s robotic deep space probes. NASA should bear the expense, they suggest.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1649:house-appropriators-again-deny-pu-238-funding-in-doe-bill&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
11. From spacepolicyonline.com, June 26: Space policy related events scheduled for the week ahead.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1648:events-of-interest-week-of-june-26-july-1-2011&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
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