ParabolicArc.com: If it Goes to Space, You Can FInd it Here….
Space.com reports that law schools have now crossed over into the last frontier: space.
A student at the University of Mississippi will leap into the final frontier of the legal system Saturday when he receives the first-ever space law certificate in the United States.
Michael Dodge of Long Beach, Calif., earned the special distinction along with his law degree through the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law at the university’s law school.
Two-time space shuttle astronaut Ronald A. Parise passed away last week at his home in Silver Spring, Md., after a three-year battle with brain cancer. He was 56.
The Ohio native flew as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1990 and the Endeavour in 1995. He made ultraviolet and x-ray astronomical observations as part of the ASTRO-1 and ASTRO-2 missions. Parise also spoke with hundreds of ham radio operators around the world during his flights.
Frank H. Bauer, chairman of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station International program, was saddened to hear of Parise’s passing.
“Ron Parise was — and continues to be — an inspiration to countless students, ham radio operators, and friends the world over,” Bauer told Vindy.com. “While he certainly did some truly extraordinary things in his lifetime, Ron Parise is best known and cherished for keeping family and friends first … and for this, we will miss him most.”
Parise is survived by his wife, the former Cecilia Sokol, whom he met while both were students at Youngstown State University. They married in 1973. The couple’s son, Nicholas, is in the U.S. Air Force. Their daughter, Katherine, lives in Silver Spring, Md.
The family requests that contributions be made to the Youngstown State University Foundation, Dr. Ronald A. Parise Scholarship Fund.
NASA’s preliminary design review (PDR) for its new Orion spacecraft has slipped two months as engineers continue to work through one minor little problem: the capsule is too heavy for the Ares I rocket to launch to orbit.
NASA Space Flight reports that engineers are hoping to deal with the system’s negative-mass-to-orbit problem in order to conduct the PDR in November. Weight and performance problems have long dogged the agency’s Apollo-style capsule and shuttle-derived booster.
Quoting an internal NASA document, the website says that the slip in the PDR will ripple through Orion’s schedule. The Critical Design Review will slip more than six months from September 25, 2009 to April 2, 2010. However, the agency expects the Design Certification Review to slip only two months from mid-January to March 2013.
NASA Spaceflight also reports that engineers are trying to work out scenarios for astronauts to survive up to 36 hours should Orion land in the ocean far from assistance.
A Mars Odyssey blog has an intriguing post on a possible mission by NASA to send a team of astronauts to asteroid 2000SG344 - which will pass near the Earth in 2030.
The plan involves sending astronauts for a six-month round trip to the giant space rock. They would spend a several weeks on the surface, conducting experiments and testing out new technologies.
Clearly, this mission lies beyond NASA’s plans to land humans back on the moon by 2020. However, it could be a stepping stone to a longer Mars mission. The mission also would help us better understand the composition of asteroids, which could make it easier to deflect one that is on a collision course with Earth.
Alan Wasser and Douglas Jobes have co-authored an article for the Journal of Air Law and Commerce titled: Space Settlements, Property Rights, And International Law: Could A Lunar Settlement Claim The Lunar Real Estate It Needs To Survive? (PDF document).
Aviation Week’s Craig Covault also takes a look at China’s efforts at international cooperation, which will be limited until the country learns to open up.
“China’s secrecy-bound space program, increasingly capable of advanced operations, risks becoming an impediment to international, cooperative lunar and planetary exploration unless it becomes far more open, say top international space policy managers meeting with their Chinese counterparts here.
“Control by the People’s Liberation Army of virtually all Chinese space development will be a counterproductive factor ‘as the center of gravity for space exploration is beginning to move from the Atlantic to the Pacific,’ according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).”
NASA PRESS RELEASE
WASHINGTON — NASA has scheduled a media teleconference Wednesday, May 14, at 1 p.m. EDT, to announce the discovery of an object in our galaxy astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years. This finding was made by combining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory with ground-based observations.
To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact the Chandra Press Office at 617-496-7998 or e-mail mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu. Live audio of the teleconference will be streamed online at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio
A video file about the discovery will air on NASA Television on May 14. NASA TV is carried on an MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. NASA TV is available in Alaska and Hawaii on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization.
After seven weeks of suspense, NASA has found a permanent replacement for Ed Weiler, the acting associate administrator for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. And the new chief is….
Ed Weiler!
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin removed the interim from Weiler’s title on Wednesday. The former director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center had been named to the post on March 26 following the resignation of his predecessor, Alan Stern.
We’ve gotten our first look at the EVA suit that a Chinese taikonaut will use to conduct that nation’s inaugural spacewalk in October. Rob Coppinger has some images taken off Chinese television on his Hyperbola blog.
Aviation Week and Space Daily report that it looks a lot like the Russian Orlan EVA suit. Which is not too surprising because China’s Shenzhou spacecraft looks a lot like the Soyuz. Chinese officials claim the suit is their own design.
“Although seemingly a contradiction, both could be true,” AvWeek’s Craig Covault reports. “The Shenzhou spacecraft itself, for example, uses the basic Russian Soyuz design, but is significantly larger and carries major system design differences. The same is likely true for the Chinese EVA suits, which are about 25 years newer in design than the Orlan and probably incorporate major improvements.”
Officials in Hawthorne, California are hoping that SpaceX will help bring the city back its aerospace glory days, the Daily Breeze reports. Elon Musk’s company is now building Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft in the same building where Boeing once assembled 747 fuselages.
“I think SpaceX will basically bring Hawthorne back to the aerospace heydays,” Hawthorne councilman Gary Parsons tells the newspaper. “You have a major anchor like SpaceX, and then you’ll have other smaller companies coming to Hawthorne to serve SpaceX. It’s sort of returning to the aerospace renaissance of the good old days when Hawthorne was a central hub of aerospace activity.”