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Tuesday’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting on shuttle Discovery’s “roll out” to a Kennedy Space Center launch pad for a final time. The overnight event was an emotional one for many of the workers who’ve prepared the spacecraft for its final launching on Nov. 1. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden weathers a NASA Inspector General’s investigation into his handling of an agency bio fuels research project, but the inquiry raises an ethical issue for the Obama Administration. Is the phrase “global warming” missing the mark? Some in the White House believe its time for a re-branding.
1. From Spaceflightnow.com: At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle Discovery treks to the launch pad for the final time. Discovery’s last mission, tentatively scheduled for a Nov. 1 lift off, will span an 11-day voyage to the International Space Station. Discovery reached Launch Pad 39A on Tuesday at 1:49 a.m., EDT. The 3.4 mile journey began Monday at 7:23 p.m., as Discovery emerged from the Vehicle Assembly Building.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/status.html
A. From Florida Today: More than 3,000 shuttle workers, many of them facing job losses as NASA’s shuttle program nears an end, attend Discovery’s overnight roll out. Their families come along to witness Discovery, bathed in xenon lighting, emerge from a hangar after sunset.
http://space.flatoday.net/
2. From Space.com: NASA’s Inspector General completes an ethics investigation involving NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. No laws were broken, the Inspector General concludes. However, the Administrator did breach a White House ethics pledge by consulting the Marathon Oil Corp., a former employer. Bolden accepts the finding in a statement. The case involved a Marathon Oil contact made by Bolden regarding an experimental bio-fuel program at NASA’s Ames Research Center.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/news/nasa-chief-ethics-investigation-100920.html
A. From the Associated Press via the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and others: Bolden’s troubles had their genesis in a 10-minute phone call with Marathon Oil in April. A former Marathon board member, Bolden remains a significant stock holder. The Associated Press account recalls Bolden ran into political problems over the summer when he stated one of NASA’s priorities was to work with Muslim nations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/20/AR2010092002954.html
B. From the Orlando Sentinel: Since taking office last year, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has emerged as a “headache” for the White House, the Sentinel reports in a long view assessment of the Inspector General flap. The report recalls Bolden’s controversial mid-summer comments to Al Jazeera that reaching out to Muslim nations is an Administration priority. Bolden will travel to Saudi Arabia this weekend to mark the 25th anniversary of the first spaceflight by a Saudi astronaut, the Sentinel reports. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-nasa-administrator-embarrasses-oba20100920,0,503695.story
3. From the New York Times: Have the White House and NASA decided to abandon the term “global warming” to describe climate change. Some believe so because the term fails to adequately describe the planet’s peril. One replacement making the rounds within the Office of Science and Technology Policy is “global climate disruption.”
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/a-rebranding-for-global-warming/?scp=2&sq=NASA&st=cse
4. From Spaceflightnow.com: A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 lifts off late Monday (9:03 p.m., PDT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., with a classified payload. The lift off initiated a flurry of upcoming missions from Vandenberg.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av025/status.html
5. Two from The Space Review:
A. In “Space Tourism and Space Policy,” Space Review editor Jeff Foust examines Boeing’s announcement last week that it will join with Space Adventures Ltd., to market passenger seats on commercial missions to the International Space Station. Foust looks for synergies with NASA budget legislation currently before the Senate and House. The Senate’s 2010 NASA Authorization bill looks most compatible, he concludes.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1698/1
B. In “The ICE Mission: The First Cometary Encounter,” physicist and freelance writer Andrew J. LePage looks at the history of spacecraft that have been reassigned new duties once their primary mission has been accomplished. The most recent case is NASA’s EPOXI mission, which is headed toward a Nov. 4, 2010 flyby of the comet 103P/Hartley 2. The craft was once known as Deep Impact and carried out a NASA mission to study the core of comet 9P Temple 1 with a fly by on July 5, 2005.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1697/1
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