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Monday’s CSExtra features a round up of weekend developments on the space exploration and space policy fronts. In California, the Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic team achieves a significant milestone in their bid to develop a suborbital commercial spacecraft; Two Russians and an American dock with the International Space Station. United Space Alliance announces more shuttle program job losses, effective in January. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s trip to China later this month not expected to produce dramatic change in space cooperation. In Chile, rescue teams drill to a half-mile deep chamber housing 33 miners trapped since Aug. 5, and NASA inspired technology and rescue techniques will play a role as the men are hoisted to the surface this week. Lawmakers and others suggest changes in the 2010 NASA Authorization bill.
1. From The Coalition for Space Exploration, from Oct. 10: Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic achieve the first drop test, glide flight of SpaceShipTwo, also known as Enterprise, early Sunday at Mojave, Calif. With two pilots aboard, the suborbital craft is released from the White Knight Two at 45,000 feet for an 11 minute gliding descent and safe landing.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/blog/private-spaceship-makes-first-solo-flight
A. From Spaceflightnow.com and CBS News.com, from Oct. 10: Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, calls the drop test one of three significant milestones on the way to passenger flights. Rocket powered flight tests are envisioned for next year. Space flight tests by the end of 2011.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1010/10ss2/
2. From Spaceflightnow.com, from Oct. 9: American Scott Kelly and Russians Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka dock with the International Space Station two days after their Soyuz TMS-OM1 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a six month mission. Oct. 9 linkup at 8:01 p.m., EDT, was flawless, according to NASA’s Mission Control and personnel at Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp25/101009dock/
A. From the Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Huntsville Times, Orlando Sentinel and others, from Oct. 9: If NASA’s scheduling for the final two shuttle missions holds, Station commander Scott Kelly can expect a visit from his twin brother, Mark, in early March. Astronaut Mark Kelly is slated to command NASA’s final shuttle mission, aboard Endeavour. Endeavour’s mission is tentatively slated to lift off on Feb. 27. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/science/7240154.html
B. From Florida Today, from Oct. 9: Mark Kelly, brother of new Space Station resident Scott Kelly, was among the dignitaries in Russia’s Mission Control during the Oct. 9 docking. Mark Kelly’s greeting catches his colleagues by surprise, as he suggest he’s really Scott and that the twins exchanged places just before the Soyuz lift off on Oct. 7. The joke received some uneasy laughs.
http://space.flatoday.net/2010/10/kelly-twins-pretend-to-swap-spots-as.html
3. From the Orlando Sentinel, from Oct. 8: United Space Alliance announces another 320 job losses effective Jan. 7, in response to the looming retirement of the shuttle program. Some 170 of the layoffs will take place at Kennedy, bringing the shuttle workforce to less than 4,000 workers there. Formal notices to workers will go out by Nov. 7. Workers can also volunteer to depart.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-more-shuttle-layoffs-20101008,0,707257.story
4. From Space News, from Oct. 8: Though NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will visit China Oct. 16-21, no one should expect dramatic changes in relations between the two countries as far as cooperation in human space flight cooperation, a senior space policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy advises. There are significant legal and policy obstacles, including transparency issues over non proliferation, Damon Wells tells a U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee meeting, Oct. 6-7.
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101008-human-spaceflight-agenda-bolden-china-trip.html
5. From the New York Times, from Oct. 9: Rescuers reach 33 Chilean miners trapped a half mile underground with a two foot wide drill shaft. However, risks remain as the rescue team plans to line the shaft with a steel pipe before raising the men one at a time in a devise designed with NASA’s help. The risks include further collapse, or snags as the trapped miners ascend. The men were trapped on Aug. 5. NASA and others responded to a Chilean request for advice on a rescue strategy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/world/americas/10chile.html?scp=2&sq=NASA&st=cse
A. From the Associated Press via the Washington Post and others, from Oct. 10: Confident of surfacing on Wednesday, the trapped Chilean miners start to argue over whom will rise last, not first. Two paramedics will be lowered into the mine first to assist. The trapped miners are being fed a high calorie liquid diet recommended by NASA before they surface.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/10/AR2010101000959.html
B. From the Los Angeles Times: The entire rescue is expected to require two days. The surfacing miners will wear medical monitors similar to those designed for NASA astronauts.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-chile-miners-medical-20101011,0,5276213.story
C. From the Coalition for Space Exploration, from Oct. 10: Engineers from NASA’s Langley Research Center assisted with the design of the rescue capsule that will raise the trapped miners.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/blog/nasa-help-on-rescue-of-chilean-trapped-miners
6. Shoring up the 2010 NASA Authorization bill passed by the House on Sept. 29 and the Senate in August: Though the measure awaits President Obama’s signature, lawmakers and policymakers are already expressing the need for changes, and in one case a commentator urges an unceremonious disposal.
A. From SpacePolitics.com, from Oct. 8: Late Friday, the leadership of the House Science and Technology Committee, a NASA authorization panel, writes key appropriators in the House and Senate offering to clarify the NASA road map that cleared the House on Sept. 29 and the Senate in August. Panel leaders point to the need for additional 2011 shuttle program funding to permit an encore mission for Atlantis and crew to launch supplies to the space station in the late June time frame. They also seek to clarify requirements and time line for a new heavy lift rocket and multi-purpose crew vehicle (Dec. 31, 2016). Additionally, they suggest the investments in commercial space transportation services for the International Space Station should favor cargo over crew capabilities initially.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/10/08/house-committee-puts-in-its-requests-to-appropriators/
B. From the Houston Chronicle, from Oct. 8: An op-ed from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, on the 2010 NASA Authorization bill awaiting President Obama’s signature. The measure promises to lower development costs by focusing on one heavy lift launcher and crew exploration vehicle for missions that can reach the space station as well as deep space destinations, says Hutchison.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7237179.html
C. From Wayne Hale’s Blog, from Oct. 8: Wayne Hale, the retired NASA shuttle program manager, reflects on his participation in the 2009 Augustine Committee process, which influenced President Obama’s space policy proposals and the 2010 NASA Authorization measure. The memory is an unpleasant one because of the outcome, writes Hale. The result was a set of options the White House Offices of Management and Budget and Science and Technology Policy are unwilling to ensure is adequately funded.
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/chasing-augustine/
D. From the Orlando Sentinel, from Oct. 9: Charles Nadd, a young West Point cadet, recalls the inspiration he and his friends received from NASA shuttle launches as he grew up in Central Florida. The inspiration he felt from a 2006 launching convinced him to pursue an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. With the layoffs at Kennedy, Nadd hopes that there will still be that kind of inspiration for future generations in his native state.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-space-program-layoffs-100910-20101008,0,2825854.story
7. From Florida Today, from Oct. 10: Columnist John Kelly urges Central Floridians not to become complacent in their bid to provide a home for one of the retired shuttle orbiters, Endeavour and Atlantis. House legislation, now put aside, required NASA to consider “historical ties” in its choice of locales and museums. But the prevailing Senate legislation contains guidance that suggests the orbiters should go to communities where they will have the largest impact on STEM education. Discovery is already committed to the Smithsonian Institution’s Air & Space Museum.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20101010/COLUMNISTS0405/10100328/1086/John+Kelly++Battle+for+shuttle+not+yet+won
8. From The Coalition for Space Exploration, from Oct. 9: Scientists associated with Japan’s unmanned Hayabusa mission, which returned to Earth earlier this year after a long journey to the asteroid Itokawa, say they have detected at least 100 tiny particles from the asteroid. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission is the first to gather fragments from an asteroid for return to Earth.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/blog/japan%e2%80%99s-hayabusa-probe-tiny-asteroid-bits-possibly-snagged
9. From the Ottawa Citizen of Canada, from Oct. 8: Success for the James Webb Space Telescope, designated as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, runs in part through Canada and its satellite engineers.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Canada+looks+sharp+space+role/3646923/story.html
10. From Discovery.com, from Oct. 8: Theorists attempt to calculate when the universe will end. Their analysis suggests there’s a 50-50 chance of its demise within 3.7 billion years.
http://news.discovery.com/space/end-of-the-world-doomsday.html
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