NASA will hold news conferences on Monday, Feb. 1, and Tuesday, Feb. 2, to discuss the fiscal year 2011 budget request and announce bold new developments in the nation’s civil space effort.
On Monday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson will brief reporters about the agency’s fiscal year 2011 budget during a teleconference at 12:30 p.m. EST. This is a change from the previously announced 3 p.m. Monday news conference in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s other major venture, Tesla Motors, filed for an IPO last week in order to become a public company. The California-based electric car company has sold 937 of its Roadsters sports cars worldwide. The company, which has lost $128.2 million since its incorporation in 2003, plans to introduce a Model S sedan in 2012.
For those interested in an overview of Telsa’s plans, the relevant section from the registration statement is reproduced after the break.
India will launch its first manned space mission in 2016 in a bid to match space pioneers such as Russia and the United States, a top official said Wednesday.
The government had already approved plans for a human space flight project by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and last year gave the go-ahead for funding of around 2.8 billion dollars.
Obama budget hits ATK, Bishop rips president Standard-Examiner
On the day 420 of its workers were laid off because the space shuttle and Minuteman missile programs are ending, ATK Launch Systems got word that funding for the shuttle’s replacement, the Ares missile, has been cut from President Obama’s 2011 budget proposal. Ares is part of the Constellation program, designed to take humans back to the moon. Ares is the missile that would carry manned vehicles into space. The motor sections that drive Ares would be built at ATK in Utah.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will brief reporters about the agency’s fiscal year 2011 budget at 3 p.m. EST on Monday, Feb. 1. The news conference will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, located at 300 E St. S.W., in Washington.
NASA Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson will join Bolden. The news conference will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s Web site. Questions will be taken from media representatives at headquarters and participating field centers.
To watch the budget news conference online, visit:
Miles O’Brien talks to John Karas, Lockheed Martin’s vice president and general manager for human spaceflight, about its work on the Orion spacecraft and the future of the American space program.
NASASpaceFlight.com is reporting that NASA could conduct a test flight of a heavy-lift rocket as early as late 2012:
The Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) have confirmed they have almost enough External Tank resources to allow for one ET-sized “In Line†Shuttle Derived Heavy Launch Vehicle (SD HLV) test flight and up to three Block I SD HLVs. The news comes as NASA managers insist the workforce should wait for official news, and not to be distracted by reports on Ares’ demise.
The SD HLV would be along the lines of the proposed Jupiter Direct, a rocket proposed by a group of dissident NASA engineers who were unhappy with the space agency’s Ares I and V programs.
…several NASA departments [are] already carrying out evaluations on one of the major elements of the likely future path for NASA – moving away from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based around the development of a Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle.
While Ares I’s role for International Space Station (ISS) missions heads to a commercial service provider, the HLV will be contracted out – not unlike NASA already does to some extent with the shuttle – moving to a multi-company effort led by Boeing, partnering with Alliant Techsystems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and United Space Alliance (USA), with heavy NASA involvement from Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)….
Even the long-time Constellation supporter, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) is understood to be supportive of this alternate plan, along with many of his colleagues.
To California, Moon Junk Is State Treasure The New York Times
In one small step for preservation and one giant leap of logic, the official historical commission of California voted Friday to protect two small urine collection devices, four space-sickness bags and dozens of other pieces of detritus, all currently residing nearly a quarter of a million miles from the state.
WSJ: NTSB Seeks Authority To Probe Commercial Space Accidents Wall Street Journal
The National Transportation Safety Board, which currently probes plane, train, ship and highway crashes, wants to expand its purview to cover the final frontier: investigating commercial spacecraft mishaps and accidents.
Rebel Engineers Sit With NASA to Chart Future of Manned Space Popular Mechanics
When the e-mail from Doug Cooke, head of NASA’s Constellation program, blinked onto Ross Tierney’s computer screen a few weeks ago, he bolted upright. The two men sit on opposite ends of the debate over the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program, and the outreach signaled that something peculiar was happening in Washington, D.C.
NASA UPDATE
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