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Wednesday’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting on space-related activities. Chile turns to NASA for help in keeping more than 30 trapped miners alive until they can be rescued. The Pentagon moves forward with the acquisition of a new weather satellite program. China launches an Earth observing satellite. A New Jersey observatory captures a striking image of a sunspot. A former astronaut offers a grim assessment of the U.S. space program.
1. From the Associated Press via the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com and others: In Chile, 33 trapped miners face a long wait for rescue. The government has asked NASA for help in the field of life sciences. Former astronaut Jerry Linenger, who faced a month’s long wait for his return to Earth following a fire aboard Russia’s Mir Space Station more than a decade ago, also knows what it takes to survive such an ordeal: hope.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-mine-collapse-survival,0,2619590.story
A. From the Houston Chronicle: Experts who work with NASA urge Chile to facilitate communication between the trapped miners and their love ones on the surface. Structure something meaningful for the miners to do as well, say experts.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/7170090.html
2. From Space News: The Pentagon will move out on the development of a $5 billion weather satellite development project, the Defense Weather Satellite Program, to replace the over budget National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System.
http://www.spacenews.com/military/100824-pentagon-acquisition-chief-approves-weather-satellite-plan.html
3. From Space.com and Spaceflightnow.com: China launches an Earth mapping satellite.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/missionlaunches/china-launches-earth-mapping-satellite-100824.html
4. From Spaceflightnow.com: The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a large space observatory, that is to be the last major space shuttle payload destined for the International Space Station is due to arrive at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday. The shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to carry the AMS to the station in late February. The AMS will study cosmic rays and look for dark matter.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/100824ams/
5. From Universe Today: Astronomers use the adaptive optics of the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Big Bear Solar Observatory to capture an image of a sun spot in exquisite detail.
http://www.universetoday.com/71971/amazing-sunspot-image-from-new-solar-telescope/#more-71971
6. From Space.com: NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is less than a year from its first asteroid belt destination, Vesta. Dawn will orbit for a year and then move on to Ceres, large enough to be considered a minor planet. Rocky Vesta stretches 350 miles across.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/scienceastronomy/nasa-vesta-asteroid-dawn-mission-100824.html
7. From the Coalition for Space Exploration: At Kansas State University, researchers are at work on a physical fitness test that would reveal who can best withstand the physical rigors of spaceflight and work productively on the moon, even Mars.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/blog/physical-fitness-test-studied-for-space-travelers-2
8. From the sciencecheerleader.com: Former astronaut Story Musgrave offers a “straight talk” assessment of the nation’s future in space, “…we’re giving the public nothing,” he says at one point.
http://www.sciencecheerleader.com/2010/08/interview-with-story-musgrave/
9. From the Associated Press via the Washington Post: Kansas, long time home to major manufacturers of private aircraft, should strive to do the same for commercial spaceflight, according to U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican who is running for governor of the state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/24/AR2010082405692.html
10. From Florida Today: The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation of Titusville opens a semi-annual auction of space memorabilia to raise funds for scholarships.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100825/NEWS02/8250322/Space+odds+and+ends+can+fund+scholarships
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