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Sunday’s CSExtra finds commercial space transportation proponents regrouping at a Space Frontier Foundation conference in Silicon Valley in response to last week’s action in the House on a NASA authorization bill. The House measure greatly restricts the commercial initiative favored by the Obama Administration’s 2011 budget. Also, recent reports on other activities overshadowed by Senate and House action on NASA’s budget and space policy last week.
1. From Spacepolitics.com: NASA authorization bills pending in the Senate and House (much more so in the House) cut deeply into the Administration’s commercial space transportation development strategy. Nonetheless, speakers at the NewSpace 2010 conference sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation and under way in Silicon Valley rally their supporters. One predicts NASA will not have a new budget until after the November elections. Then, the White House will weigh in again on the commercial initiative, he speculates.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/07/24/commercial-space-advocates-regroup/
A. From the Galveston Daily News of Texas: A compromise between House and Senate NASA authorization bills for 2010 could save 85 percent of the estimated 7,000 Houston area NASA jobs in jeopardy because of the space shuttle’s retirement and the cancellation of the Constellation Program, according to an economic development official.
http://www.galvnews.com/story/164806.
2. From the BBC: Russia commits $800 million to begin the construction of a a new civilian rocket launch complex near Russia’s border with China, the BBC reports on July 20. The facility, operational in 2015, will ease reliance on the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is in Kazakhstan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10698433
3. From Space.com: Researchers at Arizona State University’s Mars Space Flight Facility report last week they have used an infrared camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft to produce the most accurate map yet of the Red Planet’s terrain. The map comprises 21,000 separate images.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/scienceastronomy/online-mars-map-best-ever-100723.html
A. Also from Space.com: Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory work to overcome a problem with the 9-year-old Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Odyssey serves as a communications relay for the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, as well as a remote sensing satellite.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/missionlaunches/mars-odyssey-spacecraft-malfunction-100725.html
4. From Florida Today: A look at Boeing’s efforts to produce a commercial crew transportation capsule, the CST-100, for use by Bigelow Aerospace and others for missions to low Earth orbit.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20107250326
A. From Florida Today: At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, processing teams convert a shuttle cargo container into a permanent storage closet for the International Space Station. The Permanent Multipurpose Module, fabricated in Europe and once known as Leonardo, is scheduled to lift off aboard shuttle Discovery in November.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100725/NEWS02/7250350/Discovery+s+payload++Supply+module+reinforced+for+extended+stay+in+space
5. From CNN.com: Terry White, an Orbiter Processing Facility manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, talks about his future and that of the space program.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/04/15/couwels.nasa.workforce.cnn?iref=allsearch
6. From the Huntsville Times: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Show featured in a television documentary that wins a regional TV Emmy award.
http://blog.al.com/space-news/2010/07/tv_show_about_alabamas_role_in.html
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