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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. Mars One, the Dutch nonprofit, trims to 100 its pool of prospective Mars settlers. NASA prepares the massive crawler transporter developed to chauffeur the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket to its launch pad for a Kennedy Space Center test drive. Is the proposed White House NASA budget for 2016 a stalemate on arrival? Ten good reasons to back NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission. Amateur astronomers detect mysterious blobs in the Martian atmosphere. Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft delivers early photos from Saturday’s close encounter with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Russia launches a Progress re-supply mission to the International Space Station early Tuesday. U.S. commercial crew services companies turn to NASA for lessons learned from space shuttle operations. Just where does “space” fit in the difference between discovery and invention? Risks of space tourism prompt a look at the safety of pressure suits.
Human Deep Space Exploration
100 finalists have been chosen for a one-way trip to Mars
The Washington Post (2/16): Mars One, the Dutch nonprofit, trims to 100 its pool of candidates eligible to be among the first to settle the red planet in the mid-2020s — if the organization’s strategy works. The original number of global aspirants topped 200,000 in 2013. The U.S. has the most of any nation represented among the new 100, with 38 aspiring Mars colonists. The 100 were chosen from a secondary pool of 660 candidates selected for interviews in 2014.
How much would you sacrifice to be the first person on Mars?
PBS New Hour (2/16): Mountain climber Michael McDonald, schooled in physics, is among the 100 chosen by Mars One on Monday to continue the competition for a chance to make a one way trip to Mars in the mid-2020s. He’d leave his family behind for the opportunity.
Beach native eliminated from Mars colony project
The Virginian Pilot (2/16): Heidi Beemer, an aspiring Mars colonist, is among those who were not selected to continue on in the Mars One astronaut selection. “I will continue to pursue my dreams through NASA and other opportunities that present themselves in the future,” Beemer shared by Facebook. “Being a Mars One candidate did not define who I am, but one day going to Mars does!”
Super Crawler CT-2 preparing for a test run to Pad 39B
NASAspaceflight.com (2/16): A test run at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is planned for this week. The massive crawler transporter is in development to haul NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lift rocket to Launch Pad 39B. The SLS and NASA’s Orion crew capsule are intended to start humans on future missions of deep space exploration.
Editorial | NASA’s Groundhog Day budget foreshadows more stalemate
Space News (2/16): Even with a White House proposed $500 million increase within NASA’s $18.5 billion, 2016 budget proposal, the space agency is faced with the challenge of winning lawmakers over to its proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission, a multi-element test flight intended to move the U.S. toward the human exploration of Mars.
10 reasons why an asteroid redirect mission is worth doing
Space News (2/16): Jonathan Goff says the waiting bounty includes advances in propulsion technology, knowledge of the makeup and resource potential of asteroids as well as experience in manipulating space objects on a collision course with the Earth. Goff favors an ARM option that would extract a boulder from the surface of a large asteroid rather than the capture a small asteroid. In either case, the ARM goal is to steer the small asteroid or boulder into orbit around the moon, where it could be examined by astronauts. Missions would be a step in the future exploration of Mars.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Mystery cloud-like blobs over Mars baffle astronomers
New Scientist (2/16): In 2012, amateur astronomers spotted curious plumes rising high in the Martian atmosphere from the southern hemisphere. Were they comprised of water and carbon dioxide ice, dust or perhaps were they local aurora? A team of international experts attempted to arrive at an answer but could not.
Photos from Rosetta’s Valentine’s Day comet close-up
Spaceflightnow.com (2/16): The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission spacecraft swooped within four miles of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s surface on Saturday, providing the closest images yet of the object’s rugged surface. The first photos from the encounter were released on Monday.
Low Earth Orbit
Soyuz lofts Progress M-26M on fast track mission to ISS
NASAspaceflight.com (2/17): Russia’s 58 Progress sprints toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station on Tuesday, following a 6 a.m., EST, lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. An automated docking is schedule for just before noon. The resupply vessels is carrying 3.1 tons of propellant, water and other supplies.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Lessons from shuttle can help Commercial Crew
Aviation Week (2/17): Most prospective U.S. commercial crew transportation service providers are turning to NASA for lessons learned from the space shuttle era. NASA shuttle operations ended in 2011 after 135 missions and two tragedies.
Discoveries or inventions: The case for industrial property in space
The Space Review (2/16): Essayist Kamil Muzyka sorts out the challenge of differentiating the two in space and when it seems appropriate to seek a patent — at least for now. Muzyka is a lawyer and doctoral student at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Suborbital
The stratosphere and suborbit: Shirtsleeves or pressure suits?
The Space Review (2/16): Essayist Anthony Young leans toward pressure suits and explains why in the emerging suborbital passenger market. It’s U.S. military protocol. Young is president of Personal Spaceflight Advisors, LLC.
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