A federal spending bill before Congress includes $20 million in funding to help NASA Wallops Flight Facility rebound from damage caused to the launch facility by an Antares rocket failure. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced the money is included in compromise legislation scheduled to be considered by both the Senate and the House this week.
The funds if approved would help pay for repairs to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island. “We are proud of our work with partners in the House and across the aisle to secure $20 million in federal funding that will help Wallops Island rebound from the launch failure this fall,” the senators said in a joint release.
They called Wallops Flight Facility “a key asset to Virginia that will continue to play a major role in the future of NASA and space exploration.” Kaine and Warner thanked Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, calling the Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee “a key supporter and advocate of NASA and the Wallops facility.” (12/12)
Google, France Partner On Balloon-Powered Internet (Source: Aviation Week)
French space agency CNES will join Google in the online-search giant’s ambitious project to launch a fleet of stratospheric balloons to provide Internet access to rural and underserved parts of the globe. Dubbed Project Loon, the fleet of balloons would be carried by winds some 18 to 20 km above the Earth – higher than commercial airlines and weather – and powered by solar panels. (12/12)
NASA’s Chief Scientist: The Future of Space Exploration Is International Partnerships (Source: Slate)
NASA’s goal to put astronauts on Mars by the 2030s could be a unifying project. And not only in the U.S. Exploration in the 21st century is likely to be a far more globally collaborative project than it was during the fierce Cold War Space Race between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Why has the idea of reaching Mars captured the world? A trip to Mars is a priority for many scientific reasons—some believe it’s the planet that most resembles our own, and one that could answer the age-old question of whether we’re alone in the universe.
The spirit of trans-border ownership and investment seems set to continue. One key part of this is the Global Exploration Roadmap, an effort between space agencies like NASA, France’s CNES, the Canadian Space Agency, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, among many others. The partnership is intended to aid joint projects from the International Space Station to expeditions to the Moon and near-Earth asteroids—and of course, to reach Mars. Click here. (12/12)
Boots and Flags, or Habs (Source: SPACErePORT)
The cancelation of Apollo confirmed that the overarching goal of that program was to demonstrate U.S. technological superiority in the unique environment of the Cold War. Dreams of continued human exploration, and even habitation, were shelved in favor of more pressing terrestrial priorities. The Space Shuttle and International Space Station were served up as placekeepers, keeping humankind in orbit but without the political will or funding to reach further into space.
As China and other nations rachet up their space programs, many U.S. politicians support a return to Apollo-style exploration, urging a race back to the moon or to Mars primarily to win a geopolitical contest or gain some supposed military advantage. They don't like NASA's current stepping-stone focus on asteroid missions (possibly because China hasn't claimed this as their own priority).
A flag-planting race to the moon or Mars wouldn't be nearly as expensive as creating a permanent base there, but would it be a worthwhile exploration goal? I don't think this question has been thoroughly considered by some lawmakers. Meanwhile, NASA continues to develop capabilities it might need for any exploration goal, while focusing on an asteroid mission considred to be less costly yet challenging enough to justify the effort. (12/12)
Swarms of Pluto-Size Objects Kick Up Dust around Adolescent Sun-Like Star (Source: NRAO)
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) may have detected the dusty hallmarks of an entire family of Pluto-size objects swarming around an adolescent version of our own Sun. By making detailed observations of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the star known as HD 107146, the astronomers detected an unexpected increase in the concentration of millimeter-size dust grains in the disk's outer reaches.
This surprising increase, which begins remarkably far -- about 13 billion kilometers -- from the host star, may be the result of Pluto-size planetesimals stirring up the region, causing smaller objects to collide and blast themselves apart. (12/12)
Russia’s GLONASS Union May Set Up $100 Million Joint Venture in India (Source: Itar-Tass)
Russian non-profit partnership GLONASS Union and India’s Eirene Systems may set up a joint venture to develop and produce satellite navigation receivers for the ERA GLONASS emergency response system, with about $100 million investments, the union’s President Alexander Gurko said.
The joint venture can be established if India decides to implement the ERA GLONASS emergency response system, which can be finished within four to five years, like it was done in Russia. The establishment of a joint stock company GLONASS is being finished in Russia, and it will start operations in January-March 2015, he said. After that final agreements on the joint venture with India may be reached, he added. (12/11)
India's Team Indus Goes for the Moon Shot (Source: Times of India)
"Even if Team Indus launches later than the deadline of Google Lunar XPrize, India will salute you," Vedachalam, a retired senior official of ISRO said. It's a line that nobody in the young team that Narayan leads can forget. And it's accolades like these that are keeping the team going, and which have considerably strengthened their determination to beat the Google Lunar XPrize deadline. (12/12)
Orion, Risk Taking & Limits (Source: Real Clear Politics)
Risk taking has been frequently on my mind lately as both the highs and lows of pushing the space frontier have been much in the news. Nobody ever won a race, introduced a new product, fielded a new technology, built a better customer experience or revolutionized the state-of-the-art without taking a risk. Yet, we have reached a point where much of society in the developed world expects to be able to live a risk-free existence. The causes of this societal timidity can be debated: Is it fear-based because of our litigiousness?
Have sophisticated insurance and assurance industries marketed so well to us that we believe all risk can be eliminated from life? Have government "security net" programs become so pervasive that we believe no one, and no thing, can ever be allowed to fail? Or has the sense of entitlement that defines the baby boom generation altered our reality in a way that the "greatest generation" -- those heroes of duty, honor and courage -- would disdain? Click here. (12/12)
Florida Delegation Splits on 'CRomnibus' 14-13 (Source: Sunshine State News)
The U.S. House voted to pass the $1.1 trillion omnibus federal spending bill on Thursday by a narrow margin, 219-206, with the Florida delegation breaking along unusual lines: 14-13. Florida Republicans Gus Bilirakis, Ander Crenshaw, Mario Diaz-Balart, David Jolly, John Mica, Rich Nugent, Tom Rooney, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Dennis Ross, Steve Southerland and Ted Yoho backed the measure. They were joined by Florida Democrats Patrick Murphy and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Standing against the measure were Florida Republicans U.S. Reps. Curt Clawson, Ron DeSantis, Jeff Miller, Bill Posey and Dan Webster as did Florida Democrats U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, Ted Deutch, Lois Frankel, Joe Garcia, Alan Grayson, Alcee Hastings and Frederica Wilson. (12/12)
Cosmic Mystery Solved? Possible Dark Matter Signal Spotted (Source: Space.com)
Astronomers may finally have detected a signal of dark matter, the mysterious and elusive stuff thought to make up most of the material universe. While poring over data collected by the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft, a team of researchers spotted an odd spike in X-ray emissions coming from two different celestial objects — the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster.
The signal corresponds to no known particle or atom and thus may have been produced by dark matter, researchers said. "The signal's distribution within the galaxy corresponds exactly to what we were expecting with dark matter — that is, concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges." (12/12)
How to Think About… Space-Time (Source: New Scientist)
Space-time. Often described as the fabric of reality, this four-dimensional amalgamation of space and time was set at the heart of physics by Einstein (see "How to think about… Relativity"). But what is it? A popular way of envisaging space-time is as a stretchy rubber sheet that deforms when a mass is placed on it, with the varying curvature analogous to the warping of space-time by gravity.
It's a picture that might lead us to believe space-time is itself something physical or tangible. But the physical manifestation of the dimensions we move through is, if anything, the fields they contain. For most physicists, space-time itself is a lot more abstract – a purely mathematical backdrop for the unfolding drama of the cosmos. (12/12)
ULA Looks to Revamp Atlas as Russian Engine Ban Looms (Source: SEN)
“We’re going to have to accelerate development of our replacement engine,” ULA chief executive Tory Bruno said during an interview before last week’s launch of the company’s Delta 4 Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Orion capsule on a test flight. ULA also will look to shift some Atlas 5 military missions onto the pricier Delta rockets, which use U.S.-made Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-68A main engines.
Bruno declined to say how much ULA is investing in Blue Origin’s engine work. The appropriations bill, which funds most of the U.S. government through Sept. 30, 2015, the end of the fiscal year, also includes $220 million for work on a new U.S. engine. (12/12)
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