The NewSpace Daily

Several Sierra Nevada Corporation employees recently unwrapped the Dream Chaser flight test vehicle following its five-state journey from Colorado to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in southern California. The prototype space access vehicle will undergo ground and approach-and-landing flight tests in the coming months at Dryden as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) development work. SNC is one of three companies working with CCP during the agency's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers.

One of the biggest challenges facing humanity in space is: how to cultivate food. Coincidentally, one of the biggest challenges facing the entire planet in the near future will be: how to cultivate enough food to support an ever-swelling population. Wouldn’t it be delicious if both challenges could be solved, or at least partially solved, using the same, open-source technology?

 

Enter the 3-D printer: your all-in-one solution to lunar habitat-building, gun-making and space pizza preparation! Now, the latter has grabbed the attention of NASA, which has approved a $125,000 grant for a mechanical engineer to develop a prototype of his universal food synthesizer based on 3-D printing technology.

 

 

Oh Washington, why do you toy with NASA so?

 

Back in 2009 President Obama convened the Augustine commission to provide a full overview of NASA’s human spaceflight program, and determine the best course of action to take. The committee’s principal finding was, simply, this: NASA’s budget should match its mission and goals.

 

Alas no one in Washington bothered to listen to this advice, then or now.

 

 

Georgia is ideally situated, in terms of both geography and infrastructure, to locate a commercial spaceport. Our southern latitude is important because spacecraft get an additional boost from Earth's rotation the farther south they launch. Also, launching spacecraft over the ocean, rather than heavily populated land areas, reduces the risk. Where can you find a southeastern coastline? Georgia. These geographical assets are further enhanced with barge access to the Atlantic, a superior interstate system, and the world's busiest airport nearby. Combine these benefits with a population of 85,000 aerospace workers in the state and an outstanding university system to train and enhance the next generation workforce, and Georgia presents a highly attractive package for space entrepreneurs. Few people today realize that in 1960, when NASA was looking for a site to launch rockets, Georgia was on the short list for many of these reasons.

Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2013/05/18/2507383/spaceport-georgia.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

Scaled Composites conducted a static fire of an engine on Friday that startled everyone who heard it at the Mojave Air and Space Port the other day. The nozzle and engine casing ended up separated from the test rig and was on the floor outside the small fence that surrounds the test site.

 

Scaled says that is exactly what they planned to do. The company is describing it as a “a non-flight experimental rocket motor in which flaws had been intentionally introduced to improve knowledge of different design components. Tested experimental grain to destruction. This unique test, which was necessary to perform during the test program, successfully collected data for several key safety systems.”

 

 

At the risk of over-generalizing, there are two broad points of view among space enthusiasts about the future of American human spaceflight. One group looks at NASA’s inability to go beyond Earth orbit in the last four decades, looks at the numerous policy collapses like the Space Exploration Initiative and the Vision for Space Exploration, and considers the current lack of clearly defined goals and destinations and the resources to actually venture outward, and gets depressed. Another group looks at the rise of “commercial space,” at the Bigelow inflatable habitats and the announced plans for asteroid mining and, above all, the latest press releases from SpaceX, and concludes that the future is so bright that we gotta wear shades. In their view, humans will be landing on Mars perhaps within fifteen years wearing corporate logo polo shirts and drawing the shape of the dollar sign in the pink sky while flipping the bird at the oppressive NASA bureaucracy.

 

But I try to be as analytical as possible about the present: the glass is neither half full nor half empty; it is a 16 ounce glass containing 8 ounces of water. And when it comes to trying to imagine the future of human spaceflight, I watch movies.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden had a rare (and welcome) availability with Houston area media on Thursday, and while he generally stuck to talking points, citing the space agency’s rosy future, moments of frustration slipped through the cracks.

 

These slips are illuminating as they point out a central weakness and strength of NASA — its 10 centers spread across eight states.

 

 

"Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed the space shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraft development program in the name of saving a few pennies for today’s budget bottom line resulting in the compromised systems that, if they fly at all, will not be cheap enough to enable business in space…

 

"Currently, the commercial space effort stands uncomfortably close to the brink of financial starvation. Deep space transportation development is being stretched out by similar restrictions. Business is looking to see if the government is serious about providing the critical support or whether this effort will be wasted as so many earlier government programs which withered away on the very cusp of success: National Launch System, Orbital Space Plane, and others."

 

"Those of us in the space industry understand that NASA remains a living legend, changing, improving, adapting to new science and exploration. In fact, the United States' diverse spaceflight talent is a major asset that we are fortunate to maintain. Other nations have put objects into space. Other nations have put humans into space. Some have conducted commercial space launches. But no other nation has done all these things using the resources and genius of both the public treasury and private investment. With safety as its imperative, the United States has shown to the world the ability to integrate space initiatives. No other nation has done that. No other nation has performed space flight as well as we have. And I'm proud to say, we're getting even better at it. We are stronger than ever. We have only just begun."

 

 

SAN MATEO, Calif. — Opening spaceflight up to the masses could help spark a global conservation ethic that stems the tide of environmental destruction on Earth, NASA's science chief says.

 

Seeing our fragile Earth hanging alone in the blackness of space tends to be a life-altering, or at least perspective-changing, experience. If more people around the world are treated to that unforgettable sight, humanity might handle the planet with a bit more care, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA'sScience Mission Directorate.

 

"Ultimately, my vision is that lots of people get to go to space," Grunsfeld said here Saturday (May 18) at Maker Faire Bay Area, a two-day celebration of DIY science, technology and engineering. "If we get more people, we'll have folks who can articulate a view of the Earth that leads to more people who want to keep the Earth a nice place to live."

 

 

The mothballed Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) began looking towards the future on Friday, after NASA issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) from the commercial sector. A level of interest has already been mooted by several parties, ranging from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V through to SpaceX’s future monster launch vehicles known as Falcon X/XX.

 

 

NASA has doled out a research grant to develop a prototype 3D printer for food, so astronauts may one day enjoy 3D-printed pizza on Mars.

 

Anjan Contractor, a senior mechanical engineer at Systems and Materials Research Corporation (SMRC), based in Austin, Texas, received a $125,000 grant from the space agency to build a prototype of his food synthesizer, as was first reported by Quartz.

 

NASA hopes the technology may one day be used to feed astronauts on longer space missions, such as the roughly 520 days required for a manned flight to Mars. Manned missions to destinations deeper in the solar system would require food that can last an even longer amount of time.

 

 

The dramatic meteorite strike that blasted out a big crater on the moon two months ago shows just how perilous manned lunar exploration can be.

 

A 1-foot-wide (0.3 meters) rock slammed into the lunar surface at 56,000 mph (90,120 km/h) on March 17, creating a fresh crater 65 feet (20 m) wide. The crash caused the biggest and brightest explosion scientists have seen since they started monitoring lunar meteorite strikes in 2005.

 

"The flash was so bright it saturated the camera," said Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The lunar blast was the equivalent of 5 tons of TNT going off, scientists said.

 

 

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) – NASA and Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas are holding a media availability at 1:30 p.m. EDT, Thursday, May 23, to discuss the agency’s Space Act Agreement with the company for its insight on collaborating with commercial industry on exploration beyond Earth orbit. Journalists can participate in-person or by teleconference.

 

Under the agreement, Bigelow will work with a variety of commercial space companies to assess and develop options for innovative and dynamic private and public investments to create infrastructure to support domestic and international governmental exploration activities alongside revenue generating private sector enterprises. Bigelow will deliver its analysis by the end of this year.

 

SAN MATEO, Calif. — The organization whose big-money prizes helped get the private spaceflight industry off the ground isn't done issuing high-profile challenges to spur exploration of the final frontier.

 

The nonprofit X Prize Foundation, which awarded $10 million to a groundbreaking private spaceship in 2004 and is currently offering $30 million in prize money for a private race to the moon, will be announcing further spaceflight challenges in the future, said Gregg Maryniak, the organization’s corporate secretary.

 

 

... In New Mexico, workers are putting the finishing touches on the first of at least ten spaceports currently under construction around the world. More than 800 people have paid as much as $200,000 apiece to reserve seats on commercial flights into space, some of which are expected to launch, at long last, within a year. Space-travel agents are being trained; space suits are being designed for sex appeal as much as for utility; the founder of the Budget hotel chain is developing pods for short- and long-term stays in Earth’s orbit and beyond. Over beers one night, a former high-ranking NASA official, now employed by Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin transportation conglomerate, put it plainly: “We happen to be alive at the moment when humanity starts leaving the planet.”

 

"I believe that we are beginning an era of low-cost, routine space access that will offer incredible new opportunities for the research community. Reusable commercial suborbital vehicles will allow researchers to fly payloads often, conduct more experiments and collect more data, for the price of one traditional launch vehicle. Payloads will have a gentler ride to space, resulting in reduced payload development cost and the opportunity to fly experiments that were prohibitively difficult to fly before. With short lead times, there will be opportunities to launch coincident with terrestrial and astronomical phenomena, providing astronomers and earth scientists telescope observation prospects from the edge of space. Some of the platforms will also fly researchers alongside their payloads, an exciting new addition to spacebased research that will provide flexibility that can only come from having an investigator in the loop, and reduce the need for expensive and error-prone automation. Like researchers on ocean-going vessels, in Antarctica, and on research aircraft, space-based researchers will be able to more effectively conduct their experiments when they fly with them to adapt to discovery and to acquire in-situ data."

 

 

"In the last few years, the industry has undergone significant growth in revenue, employees and capability. Much of its success has been based on the tremendous support that NASA has provided in developing and providing technologies, supporting development of space systems and buying services from commercial providers. This partnership between the private sector and NASA has helped create an industry that can provide services to both NASA and private customers, while creating jobs all over America."