NASA PR — WASHINGTON — NASA has signed a $753 million modification to the current International Space Station contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency for crew transportation, rescue and related services from 2014 through June 2016. The firm-fixed price modification covers comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, flight operations, landing and crew rescue of long-duration missions for 12 individual space station crew members.
Here’s more evidence, if we needed any, that Rep. Ralph M. Hall (R-TX) has space dust clogging up his brain. Here is an excerpt from a blog post he published in The Hill, with my annotated notes in italics:
“NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said at a recent hearing that NASA would not need exploration capabilities until after 2020, although Congress clearly directed NASA to develop the heavy lift system with an initial capability to return to the International Space Station by 2016. Failure to do so will result in continued reliance on the Russians’ Soyuz to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. This is unacceptable. NASA should give highest priority to developing the SLS and MPCV programs that build on the tremendous investments that have already been made in the Constellation systems. We cannot, as the NASA Administrator suggests, wait until 2020.”
Editor’s Note: The 130-ton heavy-lift SLS is not a very good way to launch a half-dozen astronauts to low-Earth orbit. It would be like using a Winnebago rather than a minivan for that carpool to work. Or taking a yacht across San Francisco Bay instead of the passenger ferry to go to your day job.
National Defense Magazine sees the emerging commercial spaceflight sector as one of the bright spots in the decaying U.S. national space industrial base, which is beset by an aging workforce, a shortage of replacement workers, restrictive export regulations, and the downsizing caused by the retirement of the space shuttle fleet.
Robert Rice, airport operations director at the Mojave Air and Space Port, drove down a runway and pointed to the steel skeleton of a 68,000-square-foot building where spaceships designed to send tourists into sub-orbit will be constructed.
“We call this our field of dreams — build it and they will come. Well, finally they did,†he said.
Pad OA at Wallops Island. (Credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation)
BEACON PR – Salisbury – The Business, Economic, and Community Outreach Network (BEACON) of the Franklin P. Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University recently completed an Economic Value Study of the some of the business and government operations at Wallops Island.
The study demonstrated that the economic value of the various entities at Wallops Island extends beyond Accomack County in Virginia. In the Lower Eastern Shore Region (including Accomack and Northampton Counties in Virginia, and Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties in Maryland) these activities support over 2,000 jobs and represent close to $200 million of total economic value.
Spaceport timeline still intact after staff changes
Las Cruces Sun-News
Overall construction at the spaceport’s first phase is between 70 and 80 percent finished, a spaceport staff member said last week. The largest outstanding project, a $32.5 million terminal-hangar facility being built by Summit Construction, is about 77 percent complete, according to spaceport officials.
This week in The Space Review…. Getting down to the nuts and bolts of suborbital research Interest is using the new generation of commercial suborbital vehicles for scientific research has surged in the last couple of years. Jeff Foust reports that, at a recent conference, the focus of the discussion had shifted to more practical matters like training and payload interfaces. Why commercial human spaceflight will be safer, less expensive, […]
The static test of a Falcon 9 rocket on Dec. 4, 2010. (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX PR – Hawthorne, CA/ Luxembourg– As the Satellite 2011 conference kicked off in Washington, D.C., Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and SES (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) today announced an agreement to launch an SES satellite using the Falcon 9 rocket.
SES is one of the largest satellite operators in the world, and the deal marks what will be the first geostationary satellite launch using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The firm launch agreement with SpaceX also includes an option for a second SES launch. It supplements SES’ existing multi-launch agreements with its traditional launch providers Arianespace and ILS.
This week on The Space Show…. Monday, March 14, 2011 , 2-3:30 PM PDT. We welcome back Dr. Bill Rowe for the first part of a three part series focusing on vascular complications of spaceflight and applying these principles for our own health. Visit his website, www.femsinspace.com and check out his submarine analogy which you will find near the middle of his home page. Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 7-8:30 PM […]
Douglas, Isle of Man – March 15, 2011, Odyssey Moon Limited announced today that seasoned satellite and telecommunications executive, Richard Denny, has joined the Board of Directors of Odyssey Moon Ltd. Odyssey Moon was the first entrant in the $30 million Google Lunar Xprize (GLXP) competition.
Odyssey Moon Chairman, Ramin Khadem, commented that, “The Board of Odyssey Moon welcomes its newest member, Richard Denny who is Senior VP for Global Networks and Engineering at Inmarsat Plc in London. Richard brings over 3 decades of hands on global experience with satellite and space projects. His understanding of the sector and commercialization of concepts will serve the Company immensely.â€
UVA PR — Aerospace engineering researchers and students at the University of Virginia are helping to create a hypersonic “scramjet” engine that can travel at five times the speed of sound – or 3,700 mph. That’s about twice the speed of a bullet, and it’s technology that could one day allow a plane to fly from New York to Los Angeles in just 40 minutes.
Virtually Talking Science Sunday, March 13 10 pm EST – 7 pm Pacific Blog Talk Radio MSNBCs Alan Boyle and Space Studies Institute Robin Snelson talk with planetary scientist Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons, NASA’s mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, headed to a Pluto flyby in 2015. Associate VP at the Southwest Research Institute and leads SwRI’s suborbital space research effort. Organizing chairman for the annual […]
