JAXA PRESS RELEASE
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. performed the second captive firing test (CFT) for the first stage flight model tank of the H-IIB Launch Vehicle on April 22, 2009 (Japan Standard Time) at the Tanegashima Space Center. The test went smoothly as follows.
SpaceShipTwo Mother Ship Slightly Dinged in Test Flight
Space.com
While details remain a tad murky, the tail damage was apparently caused during a touch-and-go runway approach by WhiteKnightTwo, which created a “pucker factor” in eyewitnesses watching the flight.
Ethics Probe Lost in Space
Pensacola News Journal Editorial
Last week, Pensacolian Brice Harris abruptly resigned as director of Project Odyssey, a space-tourism program run out of Gulf Breeze’s Andrews Institute. In a report released April 7, the governor’s own inspector general concluded that Harris was heavily involved in setting up the project while still with the state’s economic development department. Then — surprise! — he became the project’s director at a cool $150,000 annually. Good work, if you can get it, but apparently an ethical no-no.
Lloyds.com has an interesting interview with David Wade, who is a space underwriter with Atrium Space Insurance Consortium (ASIC). He had some interesting things to say about space tourism, commercial cargo delivery to ISS, and the problems posed by space junk.
A statement has appeared on Stephen Hawking website concerning his hospitalization: “Professor Hawking is being kept in for observation at Addenbrooke’s hospital this morning. He is comfortable and his family is looking forward to him making a full recovery.”
Lockheed Martin Corp.’s sales rose last quarter but its profits declined, succumbing to higher pension costs.
A long simmering battle over which rocket NASA should use for its space shuttle successor has broken out into the open this week. The dispute pits supporters of NASA’s new Ares rocket against those who would like to human-rate either the Delta or Atlas rockets.
Former astronaut: Man not alone in universe
CNN
[Edgar] Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments.
White House underscores support for NASA
Houston Chronicle
The unusually blunt war of words between the White House and the former NASA administrator continued Monday as the Obama administration defended itself against caustic criticism from former space agency chief Michael Griffin.
PRESS RELEASE
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has begun its first friction stir weld process on an Orion crew module Ground Test Article at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, La.
Prof Stephen Hawking ‘very ill’ in hospital with respiratory infection
Telegraph.co.uk
The 67-year-old, regarded as the world’s best known living scientist, was admitted to Addenbrooke’s Hospital near his home in Cambridge yesterday after suffering from the illness for three weeks.
Cambridge University described the professor, who has lived with motor neurone disease for more than 40 years, as “comfortable”.
NASA PRESS RELEASE
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., welcomes the public to its annual Open House on Saturday, May 2, and Sunday, May 3, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The lab will salute the 40th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission – the first human landing on the moon. JPL will also celebrate the International Year of Astronomy, a United Nations-endorsed series of events around the world that commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first telescope observations of space and planets by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei.
