A profile of my good friend, Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom. Emeline has been at the heart of a number of groundbreaking organizations, including the International Space University, Space Adventures and Singularity University. She is the quiet center who helps keep these organizations from spinning off into random orbits. It’s great to see her get the public credit she deserves. Read the article.
View of the large test stand, part of SpaceX’s rocket development facilities in McGregor, Texas. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX PR – McGregor, TX – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and the City of McGregor today signed a lease agreement allowing SpaceX to expand the size of its rocket development facility in McGregor.
Under the deal, SpaceX will lease 631 acres — the equivalent of almost 500 football fields — for its test facility. The new lease will more than double the size of the current 256 acre site on the Western edge of the City of McGregor, and will last roughly 10 years, from February 2011 to January 31, 2021.
NASA PR — At 11:57 a.m. EST, space shuttle Discovery landed for the final time at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center after 202 orbits around Earth and a journey of 5,304,140 miles on STS-133. Discovery’s main gear touched down at 11:57:17 a.m. followed by the nose gear at 11:57:28 and wheels stop at 11:58:14 a.m. At wheels stop, the mission elapsed time was 12 days, 19 hours, four minutes and 50 […]
As Moscow gears up for the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic spaceflight on April 12 amid a number of ambitious new space initiatives, some in the space research community are feeling left out:
The modernisation pushed by President Dmitry Medvedev has prompted a flurry of investment into the Skolkovo Innovation Centre, and cutting-edge industries such as nanotechnology are benefiting from high level backing.
But efforts to recreate the commercial successes of Silicon Valley in Russia risk leaving many space programmes earthbound due to lack of funding.
Roscosmos PAO — On March 9, 2011, Yuri Gagarin would have turned 77.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968), Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet cosmonaut who on 12 April 1961 became the first human to journey into outer space.
Yuri Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast, Russia). The adjacent town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in 1968 in his honour.
SNC Dream Chaser docks with the International Space Station. (Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation)
SwRI’s Alan Stern and Owen Garriott argue for the viability of NASA’s commercial crew program in Space News:
Fortunately, concurrent with the shuttle’s retirement, several commercial companies have the ability to launch payloads — and, with relatively modest modifications, even human-rated vehicles — into low Earth orbit (LEO). These include Boeing and Lockheed Martin through their United Launch Alliance joint venture, Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences, and one day not very far off might also include companies such as ATK, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin.
The spaceport isn’t quite ready yet and commercial flights are still ___ months/years away, but that’s not stopping New Mexico from using Spaceport America to promote tourism — with feet firmly planted on the ground:
The Spaceport America Preview Tour leads visitors through the history and evolution of transportation and trade in the American continent, from the Spanish and Native American pioneers of the past to the rail, air and space pioneers of the future. Touring around the region and ending up at Spaceport America, the tour gives guests a taste of New Mexico’s scenic beauty and rugged ranges.
NASA is seeking an organization to run the Nano-Satellite Launcher prize competition that it is holding under the Centennial Challenges Program. NASA provides the monetary prize purse (which can be supplemented by outside organizations) but no funding for the conduct of the competition itself. Allied Organizations must administer the Challenges with their own funding or they must acquire the funding needed to administer the Challenges through agreements with sponsoring organizations […]
Sen. Richard Shelby
The year was 1972:
- Godfather Vito Corleone ruled the box office.
- President Richard Nixon approves the space shuttle, a revolutionary new vehicle using cutting-edge technology that would provide routine, affordable access to space up to 50 times per year.
- And a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit.
That was state of the art, 1972. Jump ahead nearly 40 years, and what is old is new again. Or at least according to Sen. Richard Shelby.
AARC PR — Ad Astra Rocket Company and NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) have signed a Support Agreement to collaborate on research, analysis and development tasks on space-based cryogenic magnet operations and electric propulsion systems currently under development by Ad Astra. The agreement was signed on March 2, 2011 by NASA-JSC Director of Engineering, Mr. Stephen J. Altemus and Ad Astra’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Franklin R. Chang DÃaz.
A routine airline trip is transformed into something quite special courtesy of NASA.
NASA PR – March 3, 2011 — Today, engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., began the first phase of integrated system tests on a new robotic lander prototype at Redstone Test Center’s propulsion test facility on the U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal, also in Huntsville. These tests will aid in the design and development of a new generation of small, smart, versatile robotic landers capable of performing science and exploration research on the surface of the moon or other airless bodies, including near-Earth asteroids.