Earth--Day and Night Regions
Monday, February 20, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
From Lockheed Martin:
Lockheed Martin Selected By U.S. Air Force for Reusable Booster System Flight Demonstrator Program
DENVER, December 5th, 2011 -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE:LMT] has been selected by the U.S. Air Force for a contract award to support the Reusable Booster System (RBS) Flight and Ground Experiments program. The value of the first task order is $2 million, with a contract ordering value of up to $250 million over the five-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract period. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center are developing the RBS as the next generation launch vehicle that will significantly improve the affordability, operability, and responsiveness of future spacelift capabilities over current expendable launchers.
Initial RBS Flight and Ground Experiments task orders will provide for an RBS flight demonstration vehicle called RBS Pathfinder scheduled to launch in 2015. The RBS Pathfinder is an innovative reusable, winged, rocket-powered flight test vehicle that will demonstrate the Reusable Booster Systems’ “rocketback” maneuver capabilities and validate the system requirements that will drive refinements in the design of the operational RBS.
“We are very pleased to be selected by the Air Force to support them on the Reusable Booster System program,” said John Karas, Lockheed Martin Space System’s vice president and general manager of Human Space Flight. “The innovative technologies and capabilities that RBS will provide are vital to meeting the needs of the Air Force and the nation for more affordable, responsive spacelift in the future.”
The Lockheed Martin RBS team is led by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company of Denver, Colo., with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works® operations in Palmdale, Calif., and Fort Worth, Texas. The team also includes small business partners Science and Technology Applications, LLC of Moorpark, Calif., UP Aerospace of Highlands Ranch, Colo., and JFA Avionics Systems of Newbury Park, Calif. For the RBS Pathfinder program, Lockheed Martin has also entered into an agreement with the New Mexico Spaceport Authority to conduct flight test operations from Spaceport America, the nation’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport, located in southern New Mexico.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 126,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation's 2010 sales from continuing operations were $45.8 billion.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Texas Congressmen Press NASA for Documents on Shuttle Display Venues
From Yahoo News:
By Mark Whittington | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 5 hrs ago
Texas Congressmen Press NASA for Documents on Shuttle Display Venues
By Mark Whittington | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 5 hrs agoThis story comes from the Yahoo! Contributor Network, where individuals publish their unique perspectives on some of the world’s most popular websites.Do you have a story to tell? Become a Yahoo! contributor
According to the Houston Chronicle, a group of Texas congressmen are still unhappy the Obama administration snubbed the home of the Johnson Spaceflight Center when it came to displaying aspace shuttle orbiter.
The congressmen, led by Pete Olson, are demanding answers.
Why are the Texas congressmen unhappy?
The problem started in April, when NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the selection of the final resting places of the space shuttle orbiter fleet. Discovery went to the Smithsonian in Washington. Atlantis went to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Endeavour went to the California Space Center. Enterprise, the drop test article that was never launched into space, went to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum in New York.
Houston, where the control center of all American space flights has resided since 1965, was snubbed, according to Texas politicians. Space Center Houston had planned to display a space shuttle orbiter next to the Saturn V, with a climate controlled enclosure.
A NASA Inspector General Report that failed to find undue political influence has not assuaged the outrage of Texans. Bolden changed the criteria for displaying a shuttle from the principle one being a historical relationship with the shuttle program to the location being a high-traffic area for tourists.
The New York Relocation
To add fuel to the fire, in September, New York officials decided to change the venue for the display of the Enterprise. Instead of an enclosure at a pier next to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, Enterprise would be parked in a building to be built in a parking lot across the West Side Highway from the Intrepid on 12th Avenue. This move had the Texans crying bait and switch.
What do the Texas congressmen want?
The Texas congressmen are demanding documents. Along with members from Utah, Mississippi and Ohio, the congressmen want the Intrepid Museum's original design proposal, the minutes of a meeting that took place in April in which various display plans were discussed, and a report whether moving Enterprise to New York would cause damage to the shuttle's structure.
NASA's official position is it has no plans to re-evaluate the decision to display Enterprise in New York. NASA maintains New York's decision to display the shuttle across the highway from the Intrepid Museum is in compliance with obligations to the space agency.
Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network.
Obama wants $2.1 billion for NASA's Florida spaceport
From Yahoo News:
By Irene Klotz | Reuters – 21 hrs ago
Obama wants $2.1 billion for NASA's Florida spaceport
By Irene Klotz | Reuters – 21 hrs agoRELATED CONTENT
- The space shuttle Atlantis is moved towards the huge Vertical Assembly Building for …
POLITICS SLIDESHOWS
Greece struggles in face of bankruptcy
40 photos - Sun, Feb 12, 2012Santorum surges in polls
26 photos - Mon, Feb 13, 2012'Dogs Against Romney' demonstration
6 photos - Tue, Feb 14, 2012
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's proposed 2013 budget for NASA boosts spending at the Kennedy Space Center, which bore the brunt of job layoffs at the end of thespace shuttle program last year, the center director said on Tuesday.
The president's $17.7 billion budget request for NASA for the year beginning October 1 includes $2.1 billion for the Florida spaceport, an increase of $323 million over this year's budget.
"During these austere times when other centers went down, for us to go up I think says a lot about the importance of what we're doing and where we're going," Kennedy Space Center director and former astronaut Bob Cabana told a National Space Club Florida Committee meeting in Cape Canaveral on Tuesday.
The center's proposed budget increase won't mean more NASA jobs, however. Cabana told reporters he expects Kennedy Space Center's workforce to remain at about 7,500 employees through 2013. That number includes about 2,050 civil servants.
More than 8,000 contractors, mostly in Florida, were laid off when the shuttles were retired last year.
In addition to closing out the shuttle program, which will cost NASA about $71 million in 2013, the Kennedy Space Center is overseeing efforts to seed a new commercial human space transportation industry in the United States.
The shuttle program's end left only Russia with the means to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station, a $100 billion research outpost that orbits about 240 miles above the Earth.
Russia charges the United States about $60 million per person for rides on its Soyuz capsules.
To break the monopoly, NASA has invested $365.5 million since 2010 in six companies, including Boeing, privately held Sierra Nevada Corp and Space Exploration Technologies, which are all developing passenger spacecraft.
Another round of awards, expected to total more than $300 million, is due to be announced this summer.
The goal of the program is to have at least one and preferably several commercial space taxis able to fly to the space station before the end of 2017.
The Kennedy Space Center also oversees the agency's launch services program, which purchases rides for science and communications satellites.
The Florida spaceport is in the early phases of reconfiguring the shuttle launch pads, equipment and processing facilities to accommodate other users, such as Space Florida, a state-backed agency working to boost space-related business.
Last year, Space Florida took over one of the shuttle's processing hangars and leased it to Boeing, which wants it for its space taxi work.
NASA's 2013 spending plan includes $41 million for the Kennedy Space Center's planned multi-purpose launch facility.
Another $404 million would go toward upgrading ground support systems in preparation for launches of NASA's new heavy-lift rocket. The so-called Space Launch System, which is based on shuttle fuel tanks and booster rockets, is being designed to carry astronauts and cargo to the moon, Mars, asteroids and other destinations beyond the space station.
The first crew test flight, which would use an early version of the rocket, is targeted for 2021. Obama has called for a mission to an asteroid in 2025 and a human expedition to Mars in the mid-2030s.
(Reporting By Irene Klotz; editing by Todd Eastham)
NASA's 'ambitious' plan for a base off the dark side of the moon
From Yahoo News:
NASA's 'ambitious' plan for a base off the dark side of the moon
By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – 11 hrs agoAfter grounding its shuttle program, the U.S. space agency flirts with building a distant space stationto serve as a jumping-off point for future missions to Mars
NASA wants to send its astronauts where no men have ever gone before. The U.S. space agency is considering building a manned space station near the dark side of the moon, in a spot that's farther from Earth than any person has ever traveled. (The preferred location is 15 percent farther from Earth than Apollo astronauts ventured.) Among other things, the outpost would serve as a "stepping stone" for future missions to Mars. Here, a brief guide to the "ambitious" project:
Where exactly would this space station be?
Off the dark side of the moon, in a part of space known as the Earth-Moon Libration Point 2 (EML-2). Think of it as a sort of orbital "parking lot," or an area of space where an object, like a space station, can be balanced between the gravitational fields of two giant masses (like Earth and the moon). While most of the dark side of the moon always faces away from Earth, a part of the dark side does tilt in our direction — and it's here that the space station would be built.
Off the dark side of the moon, in a part of space known as the Earth-Moon Libration Point 2 (EML-2). Think of it as a sort of orbital "parking lot," or an area of space where an object, like a space station, can be balanced between the gravitational fields of two giant masses (like Earth and the moon). While most of the dark side of the moon always faces away from Earth, a part of the dark side does tilt in our direction — and it's here that the space station would be built.
What would this base accomplish?
It would give next-generation space shuttles a jumping off point for "destinations like asteroids, Martian moons, and — eventually — Mars," says Clay Dillow at Popular Science. The outpost would also help scientists observe the surface on the "rarely studied" far side of the moon and draw conclusions about the effects of long-term space habitation on the human body. In essence, the new station would serve as both a "waypoint" and a "technology test bed" for space travel.
It would give next-generation space shuttles a jumping off point for "destinations like asteroids, Martian moons, and — eventually — Mars," says Clay Dillow at Popular Science. The outpost would also help scientists observe the surface on the "rarely studied" far side of the moon and draw conclusions about the effects of long-term space habitation on the human body. In essence, the new station would serve as both a "waypoint" and a "technology test bed" for space travel.
How would it be built?
NASA would use "its heavy-lift rocket Space Launch System and the Lockheed Martin-built Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle" to provide the space station's foundational elements, and to shuttle astronauts to the station, says Britain's Daily Mail. Of course, the project would be very expensive, and take years to complete.
NASA would use "its heavy-lift rocket Space Launch System and the Lockheed Martin-built Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle" to provide the space station's foundational elements, and to shuttle astronauts to the station, says Britain's Daily Mail. Of course, the project would be very expensive, and take years to complete.
And NASA has the funds to do this?
Not quite. "President Obama just released the 2013 budget for NASA," says Jason Kennedy at PC World, "and with almost 20 percent in cuts slated to go into effect, NASA can use all of the help it can get." That's why the agency is pushing for partnerships elsewhere, including international and academic backers in the private sector. A study looking at the feasibility of the project is due back to NASA by March 30.
Not quite. "President Obama just released the 2013 budget for NASA," says Jason Kennedy at PC World, "and with almost 20 percent in cuts slated to go into effect, NASA can use all of the help it can get." That's why the agency is pushing for partnerships elsewhere, including international and academic backers in the private sector. A study looking at the feasibility of the project is due back to NASA by March 30.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)