In a Houston Chronicle opinion piece titled “No place for partisans on NASA, space exploration,” former White House and Pentagon official Douglas MacKinnon invokes the spirit of a president who long ago sent his nation on a voyage to the moon.
“President John F. Kennedy addressed the importance of the United States having a vibrant and preeminent space program. ‘We mean to be part of it we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond. Our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to become the world’s leading spacefaring nation.’
“No matter who is our next president, he or she is either going to have to buy in completely to the premise of that young president, or stand aside and watch as other nations lay claim to the promise of space. There is no middle ground. John F. Kennedy understood it then, and the People’s Republic of China, with its ambitious manned space program run by its military, understands it now. Preeminence in space translates to economic, scientific, educational and national security advantages,” writes MacKinnon, who is now a Washington lobbyist.
Continue reading ‘MacKinnon: Next President Must Embrace JFK’s Space Vision’
The Rocketsandsuch blog has an intriguing post indicating that in addition to grappling with vibration problems on the Ares booster, NASA may be facing soaring costs on its new Orion spacecraft.
“The contractors are today explaining to the minions that the facilities, tools, and original software code they ’suggested’ would be used in their proposal is inadequate for the job that the minions now say they want accomplished. Woefully inadequate, in fact,” the blog reports. “Caught between a rock and a hard place, the minions have caved and have asked for the ‘new price tag’ to get the machine they thought they had already paid for.”
Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham has added his voice to a growing chorus of people who want to extend space shuttle missions beyond 2010 and to provide NASA with billions in additional funding to move up the launch date of its successor.
“What we really need is a fix for the five-year hiatus, not a Band-Aid,” Cunningham writes in Launch Magazine. “That means both extending the life of the shuttle and moving the launch date for Orion forward. NASA needs a $2 billion appropriation to extend the life of the shuttle for 18 to 24 months, and an additional $2 billion to move the first flight of Orion closer by 18 to 24 months.”
Cunningham argues that a long gap between flights would erode American leadership in space, devastate the space workforce and astronaut corps, leave the United State dependent upon an increasingly authoritarian Russia, and place the fate of the International Space Station in the hands of other nations. He also called the NASA COTS program, which is designed to fund private human spacecraft alternatives, “a long shot at best” that will be prone to delays.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin is staunchly opposed to extending the life of the aging shuttles on safety and cost grounds. The shuttle’s retirement will free up billions of dollars needed to get Orion and its Ares boosters flying, the administrator says.
The Houston Chronicle is concerned that the United States will lose its leading role in space exploration.
The Chronicle’s editors are primarily worried about a possible five-year gap in human spaceflight that could follow the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010. It may take NASA that long to get its new Constellation system online. In the meantime, NASA will be dependent upon the Russians for rides to the International Space Station. And China will be expanding its human spaceflight program.
“Congress should heed U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and other lawmakers who are pressing for an additional $2 billion to speed up the construction of the Orion vehicle,” the editors say.
NASA has awarded small contracts to five companies to conduct a 210-day study of the agency’s in-house design for a human lunar lander. The five companies are:
Andrews Space, Seattle
The Boeing Co., Houston
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver
Northrop Grumman Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
Odyssey Space Research, Houston.
The contracts total $1.5 million; the largest is for $350,000. These awards are part of NASA’s effort to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.
“These studies will provide valuable input for developing a sound set of requirements for the Altair lunar lander,” said Jeff Hanley, the Constellation Program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Industry collaboration will provide insight for our planning and early design efforts for the spacecraft.”
The Rocketsandsuch blog has an update this week on NASA’s Ares rocket and Orion capsule programs. Highlights include:
Engineers are considering a strut system to deal with the Ares rocket’s vibration problems, but the strut has problems of its own;
They are not very enthusiastic about this solution because they believe the new administration will discard the Ares next year;
The Orion capsules will probably land in water instead of dry land due to weight issues;
The capsule lacks sufficient structural integrity to be reused; engineers will probably end up stripping the interior for parts instead.
Aerojet and Boeing have signed an associate contractor’s agreement to build the upper stage of the Ares rocket for NASA’s Orion lunar program. The contract also involves four other companies: Hamilton Sundstrand, Jacobs Engineering Group, Moog Inc., and Teledyne Brown Engineering. Aerojet, a division of GenCorp, is based in Rancho Cordova, Calif.
Read the Sacramento Bee story here. Aerojet has also issued a press release.
NASA’s Langley Research Center has built a full-scale mock-up of the Orion spacecraft designed to replace the space shuttle and return astronauts to the moon. The mock-up will be used to test the escape system that would rocket astronauts to safety in the event of a booster failure.
The Daily Press has a story with video. The Associated Press also has a story. You can also read the official NASA press release.
The Orlando Sentinel has a story about the challenges faced by Florida’s Space Coast with the wind down of the shuttle program and potentially long gap before the Constellation program replaces it.
“According to Washington insiders, NASA — which until now has refrained from putting numbers on work-force losses — will announce in two weeks that 4,000 jobs will disappear with the shuttle in 2010,” the paper reports. “Experts anticipate another few thousand associated jobs will follow suit.”
The new Constellation program will require far fewer jobs than the space shuttle. In addition, Florida also is facing competition from Virginia, Texas and other states and countries.
SOURCE: PURDUE UNIVERSITY NEWS SERVICE
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University engineers are conducting experiments using a new hydrogen facility to help NASA create designs to improve the cooling efficiency and performance of the J-2X rocket engine, critical for future missions to Mars and the moon.
More efficient cooling improves performance and reduces the need for costly overhauls, said William Anderson, an associate professor in Purdue’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The new hydrogen facility allows Purdue researchers to study fundamental processes in hydrogen-oxygen engines, such as the J-2X and the engine that will be used by astronauts during their descent to the moon.
Continue reading ‘Purdue University Facility Works on Improving NASA Moon Engine’
