Wednesday’s CSExtra finds one Florida newspaper calling for an end to the stalemate between Congress and the White House over the future of NASA’s human space exploration program. Plus additional reports and commentary on the policy debate from other publications. A Soyuz rocket with two Americans and a Russian lift off for the International Space Station. NASA’s Kepler mission announces extra-solar planet findings, while holding back some date for mission scientists.
1. From Florida Today: An editorial that calls on the White House and Congress to end the stalemate over the nation’s future in space. The editorial calls for a compromise on Constellation, a path that allows work on the Ares 1 to continue, while NASA invests in commercial space transportation systems. “That would provide the nation a fail-safe option should commercial rockets not prove up to the task of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station,” writes Florida Today. “The Ares work also could accelerate design of a new heavy-lift rocket that could eventually carry crews to Mars and have the additional benefit of saving jobs at Kennedy Space Center and in other states.”
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010100614012
A. From the Huntsville Times of Alabama: The city’s Mayor braces for job losses stemming from NASA’s decision last week to hold spending on the Constellation Program. Job losses of 2,500 to 5,000 are forecast nationally. This city is bracing for “serious and significant job loss,” says Mayor Tommy Battle.
http://blog.al.com/space-news/2010/06/huntsville_bracing_for_serious.html
B. From the Los Angeles Times: SpaceX signs $492 million deal to launch satellites for Iridium Communications Inc., using the Falcon 9 rocket, which made its debut launch on June 4. The Falcon 9 figures prominently in the White House strategy to use commercial transportation to launch astronauts as well as cargo to the space station.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-20100616,0,1577199.story
C. From MSNBS: Space policy analyst Jim Oberg examines the risks to the United States of relying on the Russians to launch astronauts until commercial launch services are available.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37713521/ns/technology_and_science-space/
2. Two Americans and a Russian lift off for the International Space Station on Tuesday. Shannon Walker, Doug Wheelock and Fyodor Yurchikhin will dock Thursday afternoon with the ISS to begin a six month stay.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp24/100615launch/
A. From the Houston Chronicle: The newspaper is hosting an occasional blog from Walker, who is the first native Houstonian to fly in space.
http://blogs.chron.com/inorbit/2010/06/
3. From the Los Angeles Times: NASA’s Kepler space telescope has identified more than 700 planets orbiting other stars. Previously, the planet count stood at 461. “Significantly, many of the planets are the size of Earth or slightly larger, suggesting that they might be rocky, water-bearing locations where life could have evolved,” The LA Times reports. “This is the single largest announcement of planets that’s ever happened,” Caltech astrophysicist John Johnson, who was not part of the team that made the announcement,” tells the Times. “It’s definitely momentous.” http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-extrasolar-planets-20100616,0,7774754.story
A. From USA Today: Most of the planets rival our Neptune in size. However, the entire range is from Earth-sized to Jupiter class in size. In all, NASA releases the identities of 306 of Kepler’s 706 planetary targets. The rest will be examined by mission scientists in the coming months before identification.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/06/nasa-neptune-sized-planets-orbiting-other-stars/1
B. From Discovery.com: A look at the controversial decision by the Kepler mission to withhold some of the planetary discoveries until February 2011, allowing mission scientists time to publish research papers.
http://news.discovery.com/space/kepler-exoplanet-controversy-erupts.html
C. From Science Insider: Half of the 306 planetary targets identified may be “false positives,” say scientists.
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/06/kepler-unveils-first-partial-lis.html
D. From Space.com: Ground based telescopes enable astronomers to observe a solar system in the making.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/scienceastronomy/solar-system-baby-photos-100615.html
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