Averting Armageddon via asteroid
Commentary – Douglas MacKinnon
Baltimore Sun
Make no mistake: We had no clue that 2009 DD45 was out there or that it was basically on a years-in-the-making possible collision course with our planet. None. While this close shave raises many questions, two immediate ones come to mind.
NASA delivers a little bit for a whole lot of money
Commentary – Mike Thomas
Orlando Sentinel
It is the same old scam NASA has been playing out for decades — the same one that gave us the shuttle and space station, two of the biggest boondoggles in recent American history.
A Chinese immigrant has been sentenced to 51 months in prison for illegally assisting the Chinese government with its human spaceflight program over a four-year period, the Justice Department announced today.
NASA PRESS RELEASE
NASA astronaut Mike Massimino is using Twitter to provide a unique, behind the scenes peek at the last weeks of his training for the fifth and final shuttle servicing mission to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA PRESS RELEASE
NASA has chosen the material for a heat shield that will protect a new generation of space explorers when they return from the moon. After extensive study, NASA has selected the Avcoat ablator system for the Orion crew module.
PRESS RELEASE
Orbital Sciences Corporation announced today that Mr. Carl E. Walz has joined the company as Vice President for Human Space Flight Operations in its Advanced Programs Group, based in Dulles, VA.
BALL STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE
The latest NASA-sponsored research from Ball State University’s Human Performance Laboratory (HPL) suggests that changes are needed to optimize the in-flight exercise regimen for astronauts to improve their muscle performance while in space for extended stays.
The study, found in the current issue of The Journal of Applied Physiology, suggests that astronauts need to modify their workouts to avoid extensive muscle loss during missions onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Father-and-sonauts Owen and Richard Garriott have penned a story for Popular Mechanics in which they discuss the experiments that the latter performed on the International Space Station. Owen writes:
Like astronauts, Richard was involved with scientific research, in collaboration with state agencies including NASA, the European Space Agency and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, as well as nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy. He grew crystals, took photos of Earth to be used by scientists to study climate change and catalogued the his body’s response to weightlessness.
Seoul lags N.K. in rocket technology
The Korea Herald
South Korea’s Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, which is slated to carry an experimental satellite into orbit in late July, is expected to have a much shorter range of 2,750 kilometers. The KSLV-1 rocket is being jointly developed by Russia’s Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
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Technology Review has an in-depth interview with SpaceX Vice President Lawrence Williams about his company’s plans and the retirement of the space shuttle:
PRESS RELEASE
Space Florida is pleased to announce that it has selected The Pizzuti Companies to enter into a Master Development Agreement to design and build Exploration Park®, a next generation research park at Kennedy Space Center.
NASA astronauts don’t really care what the space agency names Node 3 just as long as it gets installed on the International Space Station, Space.com reports:
