Sunday’s CSExtra includes the new reporting and commentary on space policy and NASA’s future. An expert examines how other nations are viewing U.S. space intentions. Initial efforts to human rate commercial launch vehicles unfold. After five centuries, Nicolaus Copernicus hailed as a hero by Polish priests. NASA hosts an under sea mission. The case for out sized ground-based telescopes. Amateurs track the secretive X-37B for clues on its mission. Meanwhile, the Atlantis astronauts will depart the International Space Station at 11:22 a.m., EDT, and head into the home stretch of a successful mission. Updates, mission audio available at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts132/status.html
1. From Space News: A blog from Joan Johnson-Freese, a policy expert at the Naval War College. She addresses the image of America’s space ambitions around the world (Hans Solo or Darth Vader?) and finds it less about strategic leadership as it was in the Apollo era and more about military advantage. She attributes some of the what could considered an undesirable image to the space community itself, or multiple space communities that often seem at odds.
http://www.spacenews.com/military/freeses0520-blog.html
2. From Aviation Week & Space Technology: NASA looks back to its experience with the Russians in the 1990s, as it develops a human ratings standard for commercial rockets carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. Companies with experience may be handled differently than the newcomers, and the process for all will be given a chance to evolve.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/awst/2010/05/24/AW_05_24_2010_p29-228837.xml&headline=Human-Rating%20Commercial%20Vehicles
A. From spacepolicyonline.com: NASA will incorporate the comments from the commercial launch industry as it proceeds with a human ratings standard. The agency’s safety experts note that is easier to incorporate safety into the initial design of a spacecraft than it is to retrofit it into an older design.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=905:industry-and-government-leaders-agree-safety-first-for-commercial-crew&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
3. From the Galveston Daily News: In the Houston suburb of League City, home to many with jobs at NASA, city leaders worry that space agency job losses will extend to the financial health of a wider community — theirs.
http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=cd3a253b879a4439
4. From the AP: Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th Century astronomer, was re-buried by Polish priests on Saturday as a hero. Copernicus was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for his observation based beliefs that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100522/ap_on_re_eu/eu_poland_copernicus_reburied
5. From Universe Today: A two week, NASA sponsored, undersea mission involving a pair of astronauts and four others draws to a close. The under sea team led by Canadian Chris Hadfield tests space suits in gravity levels simulating those of an asteroid, the moon and Mars. Aquarius, on the sea floor off Key Largo, simulates many of the experiences of spaceflight.
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/05/21/finding-neemo-helps-nasa-prepare-for-the-future/
A. From space.com: The under sea mission includes an astronaut rescue drill.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/missionlaunches/nasa-space-rescue-100521.html
6. From the Christian Science Monitor: Advanced ground-based telescopes command hundreds of millions in investments in spite of advances in space telescopes like Hubble and its successors.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0521/New-telescopes-could-revolutionize-astronomy-but-at-what-price
7. From Discovery.com: The craters at the moon’s poles may host more than water, an electrical shock hazard.
http://news.discovery.com/space/lunar-crater-electrification.html
8. From the New York Times: A look at the mission of the secretive X-37 B, a U.S. Air Force project that once belonged to NASA.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/science/space/23secret.html?pagewanted=1&sq=NASA&st=cse&scp=2
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