NASA BUDGET UPDATE

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver presented an outline for new and extended program assignments across the agency Thursday in support of the president’s fiscal year 2011 budget request.

Pending congressional approval, NASA will create new program offices that include activities in exploration technology and development, heavy lift rockets and rocket propulsion technology, exploration precursor robotic missions, human research, and commercial spaceflight opportunities.

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Henry Spencer
“Affordable Spaceflight Beyond LEO: Alternative Approaches, Paths Not Taken”

If you look at destination points beyond LEO, the moon is the obvious destination…

• Relatively close
• Interesting place to explore
• Resources available

L1 and L2 points

• a bit further away, longer travel time
• Other than satellite maintence and refueling, not much interest in these regions

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Henry Vanderbilt Founder, Space Access Society First started on commercial space access thinking that it would take 5 years Here we are, 17-18 years later still trying to make progress (This is the 18th annual conference) Some years a lot of progress, others not This will likely be a year where we make a lot of progress – much change occurring in the space community NASA trying to get out […]

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has launched a new program called the Reusable Booster System (RBS) Pathfinder, which aims to develop a fully reusable first stage booster. The pre-solicitation notice includes this summary of the project:

The Air Force has identified the Reusable Booster System (RBS) concept as a promising approach to meet its future spacelift needs. The RBS consists of an autonomous, reusable, rocket-powered first stage with an expendable upper stage stack. The reusable first stage launches vertically and carries the expendable stack to the staging point. From the staging point, the reusable first stage returns directly to the launch base, landing aircraft-style on a runway.

To return the booster to the launch base, the Government is considering a rocket-back maneuver. The rocket-back maneuver consists of reorienting the vehicle so that it can use its main rocket engines to accelerate the vehicle back towards the launch site. The return to launch site maneuver is completed with an unpowered reentry and gliding flight and landing.

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I’m attending Space Access 2010 Conference in Phoenix. It begins in about an hour. I will be blogging on it through Saturday. I also will be on a panel about World Space on Friday evening.

Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center

KSC to get commercial office under new NASA plan
Orlando Sentinel

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is expected to award control of the agency’s commercial spacecraft management office to Kennedy  Space Center today when he announces a slate of new work assignments under President Barack Obama’s new plans for the agency.

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Pilots wearing the Targo helmet

RRL PRESS RELEASE

Rocket Racing League® (RRL®), a sports and gaming franchise based on competitions of piloted rocket-powered aircraft, and Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq:ESLT) (Elbit Systems), an international leader in helmet-mounted displays, this week announced the successful completion of the first flight campaign of the Targo™Racer, a revolutionary aviator’s helmet mounted display with advanced avionics that will enable RRL pilots to competitively fly RRL’s 3D Raceway-In-The-Sky™ (RITS™).

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NASA PROGRAM UPDATE Work continues to prepare the E-1 Test Stand at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center for testing the rocket engines that will power commercial cargo flights to the International Space Station. Stennis has partnered with Orbital Science Corporation to test Aerojet AJ26 engines that will power Orbital’s Taurus® II space launch vehicles. In partnership with NASA, Orbital will use those vehicles to provide eight commercial cargo missions […]

X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis says that the cost of getting to orbit could be brought down considerably if you could perfect beamed propulsion, which could be produced relatively cheaply on Earth:

But in the near term, I’m betting on a technology, which is very doable today.  In fact, I’m in the middle of talking with a number of benefactors about creating an X Prize around this concept.  It’s called beamed power propulsion.  And the concept is, today rockets haven’t changed in the last 2,000 years, since early Chinese rocketry.  You have a tube, you burn something inside, and hot gases come out one end.  That’s – they’ve gotten bigger and more expensive and more elaborate, more efficient.  But they’re still the same basic concepts.  So, on of the X Prize ideas I’m excited about that I really want to have is called beam powered propulsion.

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Artist Impression of Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipOne over Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Questions raised about Spaceport firm’s NM ties
Associated Press

A company that won a $32.5 million contract for construction at Spaceport America received credit for being a New Mexico business, but questions have come up over how much of a presence the firm maintains.

According to a copyright story Wednesday in the Albuquerque Journal, Summit West appears to have two offices, and the one in Albuquerque contained nothing but an unplugged telephone this week.

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Buzz Aldrin and dance partner Ashly Costa were booted off “Dancing With the Stars” last night. They subsequently appeared on the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” talk show, where Buzz confused his host with how America should help China and India land people on the moon. (It had something to do with American global space leadership.) Buzz also plugged his new iPhone application in the second part of the interview.

GSLV Mark III engine test (Photo: ISRO)

A bit more on India’s planned April 15 test of an indigenous cryogenic upper stage, which is proceeding along with some controversy:

Later this month, if the Indian space agency’s attempt to launch its largest rocket, the GSLV-D3 with an indigenous cryogenic engine succeeds, then India will join the elite club of five nations in the world to have successfully developed such technology.

For the country’s rocket scientists, the yet-to-be-achieved breakthrough is significant on two fronts–one, they will achieve self reliance and confidence in space technology. Two, India will emerge as a serious player in the $4 billion global satellite launch market.

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