NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden announced that Chief of Staff George Whitesides would be departing to return to the private sector. He will be replaced by David Radzanowski, who was NASA’s deputy associate administrator for Program Integration in the Space Operations Mission Directorate.
Whitesides, the former executive director of the National Space Society and adviser to Virgin Galactic, had served on the Obama transition team for NASA before being named chief of staff.
Miles O’Brien reports on the Rocket Racing League demonstration in Tulsa. Steven Hawking warns us about aliens, The military launches a space shuttle, NASA helps keep an eye on oil slick off Louisiana, and the countdowns are on for Atlantis’s final scheduled flight and Falcon 9’s inaugural flight.
Space Tourism Firm to Offer Suborbital Joy Rides at Lower Costs
Space.com
An American space tourism company that arranges multimillion-dollar treks to the International Space Station for the ultra-wealthy has struck a new deal to offer suborbital spaceflights for nearly half the going cost. The price is still steep though: $102,000 for the works.
Officials decided this week to consolidate Russia’s cosmonaut corps under the nation’s space agency, Roscosmos. Russia currently has three teams of cosmonauts under the control of the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Centre, RSC Energia, and the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During a meeting chaired by Roskosmos Head Anatoly Perminov on Wednesday, the Cosmonaut Selection Interagency Board also named two cosmonaut candidates of RSC […]
RIA Novosti reports that Russia is looking to follow NASA’s lead in attracting private investment into human spaceflight as a proposal to revive a long-mothballed shuttle project is floated.
“Manned space systems have become rather expensive and private investment should be attracted more actively, like it is in the U.S.,” Roscosmos head Anatoly Perminov said.
It’s not clear whether he was referring to the six-person Soyuz replacement that Roskosmos is building or other projects that have been floating around the Russian space sector for years. One of these programs is the air-launched MAKS orbital mini-shuttle that Molnia R&D General Designer Vladimir Skorodelov has proposed reviving:
A balloon launch of a NASA-funded scientific payload went awry in the Australian Outback, turning over a car and nearly killing a couple.
Government contests offer different way to find solutions for problems
The Washington Post
The U.S. government is giving away prizes. In seeking solutions to problems, it has discovered the magic of contests, or challenges — also known as open grant-making or open innovation. Or crowd-sourcing.
Whatever you call this new way of doing business, it represents a dramatic departure from the norm for the bureaucratic, command-and-control federal government. To be sure, the agencies won’t abandon the traditional method of doling out grants to predictable bidders. But in the new era of innovation-by-contest, the government will sometimes identify a specific problem or goal, announce a competition, set some rules and let the game begin.
Artist's conception of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus freighter approaching the International Space Station.
Commercial Companies Ready to Blaze New Trails in Space
Space.com
[SpaceX] has already successfully won a NASA contract for $1.6 billion to transport cargo to the space station aboard its Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket. Another firm, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences, is building its own Taurus 2 rockets and unmanned Cygnus spaceships in a $1.9 billion contract to haul supplies for NASA as well.
Asteroid Ida
The Tucson Chronicle has an interesting article about how NASA’s new human spaceflight program could bring substantial federal funding to Southern Arizona. This prospect poses an interesting dilemma for Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a critic of the program who chairs the House Committee on Science and Technology’s subcommittee on space and aeronautics.
A human mission to an asteroid “certainly requires homework to be done†in picking safe and useful objects to visit, said Mark Sykes, director and CEO of the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute. “A lot of that work can be done in Arizona,†he said…
AEROJET PRESS RELEASE
Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE:GY) company, and Florida Turbine Technologies (FTT) announced today that the companies have entered into a strategic partnership to compete for research, development and production on NASA’s new hydrocarbon engine and advanced upper stage engine. This expands the very successful teamwork that Aerojet and FTT have underway on the U.S. Air Force Hydrocarbon Boost Technology Demonstrator (HBTD) and Upper Stage Engine Technology (USET) programs.
X PRIZE Foundation founder Peter Diamandis talks risk with Reason.TV.
1-Year Deadline Extension Proposed for Google Lunar X Prize
Space News
April 12, 2010
Teams competing for $30 million in awards as part of the Google Lunar X Prize are likely to have one additional year to reach the lunar surface and win the $20 million grand prize under a set of proposed rules issued to competitors. The proposed extension is being welcomed by many of the teams involved in the competition who face the daunting task of raising money for their efforts in a difficult financial environment.
