Hope all of you had a safe but fun 4th of July. Don't forget this Thursday is our monthly Retirees luncheon at Hibachi Grill on Bay Area Blvd. at 11:30. Hope you can join us.
Prepare for our daily afternoon thunder storm, which does briefly cool things off…
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Five New JSC Technologies in June Tech Briefs
- Male TWINS Needed for Specific Study - Organizations/Social
- Johnson Space Center Astronomy Society Meeting
- Calling All High School Aerospace Scholars Alumni
- JSC De-Ionized Water System Investigation Results
- Apollo 45th Anniversary T-Shirt Distribution
- Starport Youth Basketball Camp - Jobs and Training
- Intro to STI Center Training - July 10
- What Would You Do in a Medical Emergency on TDY?
- Financial Wellness: Do you Know Your Number?
- Job Opportunities - Community
- Knock Out Hunger! |  |
| Headlines - Five New JSC Technologies in June Tech Briefs
Five more JSC technologies are featured in the current NASA Tech Briefs. The NASA Tech Briefs publication introduces information on new innovations and technologies stemming from advanced research and technology programs at NASA. The latest JSC innovations include: - Low-Cost, High-Performance MMOD Shielding (Inventors: Eric Christiansen, Dana Lear, Frankel Lyons and Bruce Davis)
- Workspace-Safe Operation of a Force- or Impedance-Controlled Robot (Inventors: John Yamokoski, Muhammad Abdallah, Brian Hargrave and Phillip Strawser)
- Seal Design Feature for Redundancy Verification (Inventor: Doug Harrison)
- Dexterous Humanoid Robot (Inventors: Robert Ambrose, Myron Diftler, Scott Askew, Robert Platt, Joshua Mehling, Nicolaus Radford, Philip Strawser, Lyndon Bridgwater, Charles Wampler II, Muhammad Abdallah, Chris Ihrke, Matthew Reiland, Adam Sanders, David Reich, Brian Hargrave, Adam Parsons, Frank Permenter and Donald Davis)
- X-Ray Flaw Size Parameter for POD Studies (Inventor: Ajay Koshti)
- Male TWINS Needed for Specific Study
Test Subject Screening is interested in recruiting a set of male twins born between September 1963 and September 1964 to serve as ground-based subjects for an upcoming study. Volunteers will be asked to provide blood samples (20 ml) during the same times as astronaut blood draws in eight separate sessions. The study will take place over an 18- to 30-month period, coinciding with pre- and post-flight blood draws, including two blood draws during the one-year mission. The twins must be healthy non-smokers taking no medications. Volunteers must pass a Category I physical in the clinic. Volunteers will be compensated. (Restrictions apply to NASA civil servants and some contractors; contractor employees should contact their Human Resources department.) Please email or call both Linda Byrd, RN, x37284, and Rori Yager, RN, x37240, if interested. Organizations/Social - Johnson Space Center Astronomy Society Meeting
Dr. Dan McDonald from the University of Houston will join us for the July JSC Astronomy Society meeting. His topic is "Gravity Waves and the Big Bang." McDonald has the entertaining capability to explain particle physics to a general audience. We'll have our other usual short and informative presentations, such as: the novice Q&A session; the July sky's observing targets, with suggestions for beginners; "Astro Oddities;" and a few informative member's minutes. Have you considered buying yourself a telescope? Once you're a member, you can borrow one of ours for FREE prior to purchasing your own. Is there a topic in astronomy you want to learn more about? You can borrow one of our educational DVDs from our library containing hundreds of DVDs. Membership to the JSC Astronomy Society is open to anyone who wants to learn about astronomy. There are no dues and no by-laws—just come to our meeting. - Calling All High School Aerospace Scholars Alumni
JSC's High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) celebrates its 15th anniversary, which means there are 14 years' worth of alumni studying, researching and working in science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields right now! If you are one of those alumni, join us as a guest of HAS and JSC's External Relations Office at our closing ceremony on Friday, July 11, at 10 a.m. CDT in the Gilruth Alamo Ballroom. Kirk Shireman, JSC deputy director, is our guest speaker. Brunch will be provided. You must contact Katherine Crouse via email or at 281-483-6220 by Wednesday, July 9, for your reunion. Event Date: Friday, July 11, 2014 Event Start Time:10:00 AM Event End Time:11:45 AM
Event Location: Gilruth, Alamo Ballroom
Add to Calendar
Katherine Crouse x36220
[top] - JSC De-Ionized Water System Investigation Results
You are invited to JSC's SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance speaker forum featuring Jon Hall, associate division chief of the Propulsion and Power Division. Topic: JSC De-Ionized Water System Investigation Results Date/Time: Wednesday, July 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Location: Teague Auditorium If you got value from Chris Hansen and Dana Weigel's "Lessons Learned on the EVA 23 Suit Water intrusion" and Wayne Hale's "Lessons Learned: Ten Years Since the Columbia Accident," you don't want to miss Hall's presentation on the De-Ionized (DI) Issues encountered at JSC. Hall will discuss DI water characteristics, best practices, findings from the investigation and make recommendations for improvement, as well as: - What prompted the JSC DI water system investigation
- DI water production, distribution and applications at JSC
- DI water characteristics
- Best practices
- Findings from the investigation
- Recommendations for improvements
- Apollo 45th Anniversary T-Shirt Distribution
Starport will distribute the Apollo 45th anniversary T-shirts starting today, July 7, until Friday, July 11, in accordance with the following schedule: - Building 3 - Monday, July 7, and Tuesday, July 8, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
- Building 11 - Wednesday, July 9, and Thursday, July 10, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
- Gilruth Fitness Center lobby - Friday, July 11, from 3 to 5:30 p.m.
- Ellington Field and Sonny Carter Training Facility customers may contact Cyndi Kibby to make alternate arrangements.
Wear your shirt any Friday through Oct. 31 for a 10 percent discount on standard merchandise in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops. Additional shirts will be available in the stores by July 20 for $12 each. Thank you for supporting the anniversary of this milestone event in NASA and U.S. history! - Starport Youth Basketball Camp
Starport is offering a week-long youth basketball camp, with a water day included. Sign up now, as spots are going fast! Ages: 6 to 12 Time: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fee: $150 per child Extended care is available. Register online or at the Gilruth Center information desk. Jobs and Training - Intro to STI Center Training - July 10
The Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Center, or JSC library, provides access to engineering, technical and scientific databases that include e-books; abstract and full-text journals; and conference proceedings. It is also the official repository for five-digit JSC documents. Make searching for these resources a lot easier by joining the library for a training session from 2 to 3 p.m. on Thursday, July 10. To register, go to the library website. - What Would You Do in a Medical Emergency on TDY?
This question-and-answer session is for JSC civil servants to learn about Global Rescue Emergency Medical services available on international TDY. Please bring your co-workers. Event Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2014 Event Start Time:11:00 AM Event End Time:12:00 PM
Event Location: Bldg 30A Aud
Add to Calendar
Sabrina Gilmore x32773
[top] - Financial Wellness: Do you Know Your Number?
Financial Wellness classes and counseling are being offered again at JSC for the fifth year running. Classes are available on-site for two weeks only starting July 15. Financial issues are complicated enough, never mind the difficulty of determining where to go for accurate and reliable information. Do you recall who taught you about retirement, reducing taxes, investing and managing a financial transition? English and math are required in school, but some of the most important elements in our lives are not part of our school programs. Finding reliable information about personal financial management is difficult. Where do you start and who can you trust? The 2014 JSC Financial Wellness Program focus is on retirement—to help you prepare no matter when you start. Also included are investing principles and financial-transition planning. The program includes lunchtime classes and private counseling with the instructor. - Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities? To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. Lateral reassignment and rotation opportunities are posted in the Workforce Transition Tool. To access: HR Portal > Employees > Workforce Transition > Workforce Transition Tool. These opportunities do not possess known promotion potential; therefore, employees can only see positions at or below their current grade level. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies or reassignment opportunities, please call your HR representative. Community - Knock Out Hunger!
School is out, but hunger is not! This week we're focused on filling our donation boxes with portable meals: hamburger/tuna helper, ravioli, canned soups, stews and more. Did you know? - Close to 900,000 Gulf Coast residents live in poverty.
- Roughly 51,940 Galveston County residents are in need of emergency food assistance in a single year. That's one in five of our neighbors in Galveston County.
- Of the 137,000 different people who receive food assistance each week through the food bank, nearly half of households include at least one working adult, and 47 percent are children.
Drop boxes are located in most major buildings and in the cafés. There are also food bags available for purchase at the Starport Gift Shops, or you can buy a food voucher and food will be purchased for you—it's that easy! Let's prove that everything is BIGGER in Texas; our hearts and our food donations! | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Monday – July 7, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Shuttle runway management deal unfinished after one year
James Dean – Florida Today
Kennedy Space Center has transferred a historic launch pad, several shuttle hangars and various other facilities it no longer needs to new tenants.
Study debunks a 'Goldilocks' planet thought to potentially support alien life
Sandhya Somashekhar – The Washington Post
The discovery four years ago of a rocky, not-too-distant planet was a thrilling development in the search for alien life — proof, it seemed, that our planet might not be the only one with just the right mix of life-sustaining conditions.
First life-friendly exoplanet may not exist after all
Jacob Aron – New Scientist
Type the name "Gliese 581 d" into a search engine, and you'll find hundreds of tantalising images of an Earth-like world. The exoplanet has been a top contender for the most life-friendly world beyond our solar system since it was discovered in 2007. There's just one problem – it probably doesn't exist.
American Apparel sorry for using Challenger disaster photo
Ryan Parker - Los Angeles Times
American Apparel issued a public apology Thursday after the company posted a stylized picture to its Tumblr page of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
Buzz Aldrin meets 'Earth to Echo' stars, talks Apollo anniversary
Adam Poulisse - Pasadena Star-News
If anyone's positive movie review is a ringing endorsement, it's Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Space Notebook: Boeing Co., NASA finalize SLS core contract
James Dean – Florida Today
The Boeing Co. will earn $2.8 billion to develop the core stage of NASA's giant Space Launch System exploration rocket, which is targeting a first, uncrewed test launch from Kennedy Space Center in December 2017.
ISS mission from Wallops set to launch July 11
Carol Vaughn – DelmarvaNow
Orbital Sciences Corp.'s second cargo supply mission to the International Space Station will be launched from Wallops Island on Friday, July 11, according to a mission update.
Orbital Sciences Corp.'s second cargo supply mission to the International Space Station will lift off from Wallops Island on Friday, July 11, according to a mission update.
Real-Life 'Gravity' - Cosmonauts Train to Survive Space Crisis
Matthew Bodner – The Moscow Times
Floating on a small pond near Star City, a town that 30 years ago was closed to foreigners, an international crew of Russian, Japanese and American astronauts crammed into an old Soyuz training module to practice the skills that will save their lives if they are forced to evacuate the International Space Station during their 2016 space mission.
'It Just Takes Your Breath Away': What It's Like To Step Into Space For The First Time
Drake Baer – Business Insider
It was the night of Dec. 20 and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins couldn't sleep.
Catching up with Cohasset's astronaut Steve Bowen
Jill Michaels - The Wicked Local (MA)
This week, Bowen has returned to town to visit family members in Cohasset and Hanover. His schedule also included two astronaut appearances: visiting the Weymouth Public Library on Tuesday and the Discovery Museums in Acton on Wednesday.
If he couldn't fly as an astronaut, he might have liked to serve as a lighthouse keeper.
How to be an ASTRONAUT: ISS worker reveals what you need to take the next giant leap for mankind
David Crookes – All About Space
- All About Space magazine reveals the steps to becoming an astronaut
- Good education, aircraft experience, language skills and fitness are key
- Space agencies want people who can separate emotion from a situation
- 'You work hard up there, but you have those moments where you just get to stop for a little while and watch the world go by,' said Jeremy Hansen
So much has happened since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969.
Russian mission control center to lift ISS orbit
ITAR-TASS News Agency
The ISS orbit altitude goes down 150-200 meters daily affected by the ground gravity impact and other factors
Russian Mission Control Centre stated on Friday that a maneuver to increase the average altitude of the International Space Station (ISS) flight orbit was planned on July 17. The ISS orbit will be lifted at 5 am Moscow time (02:00 UTC) on Thursday, July 17 by engines of Zvezda module. Orbit adjustment is aimed at optimizing the docking of Progress M-24M space freighter, which will be launched July 24 at 1:42 am Moscow time (22:42 UTC, July 23) from Baikonur spaceport.
COMPLETE STORIES
Shuttle runway management deal unfinished after one year
James Dean – Florida Today
Kennedy Space Center has transferred a historic launch pad, several shuttle hangars and various other facilities it no longer needs to new tenants.
But after more than a year of discussion, a deal to transfer control of the former shuttle runway — arguably the centerpiece of KSCs transformation into a multi-user spaceport — remains months away.
Negotiations with Space Florida to take over management of the Shuttle Landing Facility, or SLF, are still in their early stages, with the parties hoping for an agreement by the end of NASA's fiscal year Sept. 30.
The three-mile runway's anticipated use from space planes to drones has made the deal more complex than previous partnerships involving a single user and poses an important test of KSC's ability to attract commercial operations.
"I think it's a very big test case," said Frank DiBello, president and CEO of Space Florida. "We have to make this partnership work."
NASA says it shares the state's goal to turn the runway into a hub for horizontal rocket launches and landings.
Scott Colloredo, head of KSC's Planning and Development office, said ongoing negotiations involved "strategic questions concerning how we're going to operate in the future."
"In transforming to a multi-user spaceport, NASA needs to ensure that our partners are given operational flexibility they desire while protecting the future interests of the agency," he said. "Finding that balance is critical to a successful partnership, and typically takes time to finalize all terms and conditions."
The process began with NASA's announcement that it had selected Space Florida for negotiations on June 28, 2013, just as the KSC Visitor Complex was opening its exhibit of the retired shuttle Atlantis.
"This agreement will continue to expand Kennedy's viability as a multi-user spaceport and strengthen the economic opportunities for Florida and the nation," NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said in a statement then.
No one thought a deal would take this long. But KSC and NASA headquarters then took seven months to draft an agreement that became the starting point for lengthy negotiations.
Among issues still being worked out, DiBello said, are the length of the agreement, which NASA says will be "long-term"; conditions for building and owning infrastructure where there is little now, using state and private investment; approvals of future tenants and operations; and terms that could enable the state to break even within three years.
"I believe that with the number of customers that we've got lined up for it, and with the right operating conditions on commercially viable terms, we can achieve that objective," DiBello said.
The state Legislature this year approved spending up to $2.5 million to support commercialization of the runway if Space Florida secures it.
DiBello said he's in discussions with at least nine potential customers.
Eventually those space planes, mini-shuttles and mother ships could fly space tourists on zero-gravity flights or suborbital adventures, deploy rockets with small satellites, or bring home astronauts from the International Space Station and classified military experiments from low Earth orbit.
Colloredo said the agency, as steward of the 140,000-acre spaceport, must take care to establish the right terms for the taxpayer-funded facility.
DiBello, similarly, believes the doing the right thing is critical to making KSC and the Cape relevant for more than just a limited number of government launches.
Study debunks a 'Goldilocks' planet thought to potentially support alien life
Sandhya Somashekhar – The Washington Post
The discovery four years ago of a rocky, not-too-distant planet was a thrilling development in the search for alien life — proof, it seemed, that our planet might not be the only one with just the right mix of life-sustaining conditions.
But two Penn State scientists say they have debunked the possibility of a "Goldilocks" planet once believed to revolve around Gliese 581, a faint dwarf star that is 20 light-years from Earth.
Using a technique they are developing to confirm the existence of small, hard-to-detect planets, the researchers say they have determined that physical changes within the star itself created the illusion of an orbiting Goldilocks planet. They say their method showed that a second planet — much larger but also potentially habitable — also does not exist.
Three other planets do exist in the Gliese 581 planetary system, they said, but none within the star's "habitable zone" — an area just the right distance from the star to allow the presence of liquid water.
"It's bittersweet," said Suvrath Mahadevan, one of the researchers who conducted the study, published Thursday in the journal Science. "We are pleased the technique works, but on the other hand, we have disproved these two planets. It would have been nice if they had existed."
One of the astronomers who first reported the existence of the Goldilocks planet, Steven S. Vogt of the Lick Observatory at the University of California at Santa Cruz, did not respond to e-mails seeking comment this week. Vogt's co-researcher, R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, declined to comment for this article.
This is not the first time the planet's existence has been questioned.
Vogt and Butler initially reported their discovery in the Astrophysical Journal in September 2010. They said they had found, for the first time, something long predicted by astronomers: a planet, orbiting a distant star, with the right balance of temperature and mass to host liquid water and an atmosphere, two conditions presumably necessary to support life as we know it.
The planet, Gliese 581G, was about three or four times the mass of Earth, they said. Unlike Earth, which rotates on its axis, Gliese 581G was fixed in relation to its sun, with one side perpetually bathed in light, they said. The most likely area for life, they said, was in a band around the planet where the dark side met the illuminated one.
"The logic now says there are lots of planets like this out there," Vogt told The Washington Post at the time. In later interviews, he said he believed that the planet probably hosted alien life.
Since then, however, a number of astronomers have cast doubt on the existence of Gliese 581G. A Swiss team reported that it was unable to find evidence of the planet. Vogt and Butler published a follow-up paper defending their research.
"We stand by our data and results and are hard at work obtaining more of our own data on this system," Vogt told Space.com in February 2011.
The Penn State researchers said they used a new technique to process existing data and were able to correct for activity on the star's surface — a sun spot, for example — that could be misinterpreted as evidence of a planet. The new analysis strengthened evidence that the three true planets in the system exist, and the suspect planets disappeared, they said.
Paul Robertson, the lead researcher on the Penn State paper, said his intent was not to criticize Vogt and Butler's methods but to provide a new tool for scientists who are hunting for planets.
"I think the astronomers did more than due diligence," he said of Butler, Vogt and other researchers who have looked at this system. "I think their work is more than defensible. It's perfectly good science, and all those groups continue to do good science. This is the scientific method. You have this happen all the time, where you have a result that looks to all the world correct, but if you introduce a new perspective or a new tool, those results can change."
Since Butler and Vogt's initial report, scientists have found 22 other potentially habitable planets outside Earth's solar system, according to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, which keeps a catalogue of "exoplanets," or planets outside Earth's solar system. Dozens of others are awaiting confirmation that they exist and are habitable.
In astronomy circles, given the previous skepticism about the Goldilocks planet, the bigger news in Thursday's report was the debunking of Gliese 581D, a massive "super-Earth" thought to have a dense, murky atmosphere.
Its purported discovery in 2007 by French scientists was a bombshell because 581D was so different from Earth and yet still seemed able to harbor life.
"It would be extremely disappointing if one of our favorite exoplanets . . . actually does not exist," said Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is "one of our favorite planets because it motivated people to seriously consider planets more massive than Earth as potentially habitable."
First life-friendly exoplanet may not exist after all
Jacob Aron – New Scientist
Type the name "Gliese 581 d" into a search engine, and you'll find hundreds of tantalising images of an Earth-like world. The exoplanet has been a top contender for the most life-friendly world beyond our solar system since it was discovered in 2007. There's just one problem – it probably doesn't exist.
New analysis of the Gliese 581 star system suggests that signals previously attributed to two of its six suspected planets actually come from sunspot-like regions on the star itself. The same analysis builds support that three of the other four planets are real, but none of these worlds would be able to support life as we know it.
Several promising exoplanets have been cast into doubt in the past. The gassy giant Fomalhaut b, for instance, was hailed as one of the first exoplanets to have its picture taken – but it may be nothing more than a blob of dust. And the closest Earth-sized world to us, Alpha Centauri Bb, could just be noise in the data.
The probable fall of Gliese 581 d only serves to emphasise the need for caution amid the recent explosion in exoplanet discoveries, says Paul Robertson at Pennsylvania State University in Philadelphia.
"The initial discovery of Gliese 581 d dates back really quite a few years now, and there has been a whole bunch of different teams looking at this data set," says Robin Wordsworth at the University of Chicago, who in 2011 led research naming Gliese 581 d the first known rocky world capable of supporting life. "If the new paper is correct, it's a very disappointing result."
Magnetic illusion
Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star about 20 light years from Earth. Stéphane Udry at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and his colleagues found the first four proposed planets in the system, including Gliese 581 d, using a technique called radial velocity. The tiny gravitational tug of a planet on a star shifts the spectrum of the star's light. The time between shifts reveals the length of a planet's orbit, while the shift's size gives information about the planet's mass.
The data suggested that Gliese 581 d had the right mass to be rocky like Earth, and it orbited at the right distance from its star to potentially host liquid water, and therefore maybe life. In 2010, another team claimed two more planets in the system, including Gliese 581 g, another possibly life-friendly planet. The two additions were less confident finds, but many planet-hunters thought the first four were pretty safe bets.
Robertson's team looked at a different part of Gliese 581's spectrum and measured the rotation period of the star. They found evidence for magnetic regions similar to sunspots rotating with the star, which they say give the illusion of planets d and g. "The signals of these 'habitable zone' planets were no longer there," he says, though the signals for b, c and e improved.
"I see that the authors have a point," says Udry, who is now planning further observations of the system. "This is just the way science works, and it is perfectly fine."
Lost worlds
So should astronomers – and the media, New Scientist included – be more cautious next time they trumpet an exoplanet haul?
For instance, many announcements come with eye-catching artists' impressions, but only a handful of worlds have been directly photographed, and they show up as tiny pin-pricks of light. Most exoplanets are revealed only as subtle variations in the light from their star.
"I spend my days looking at squiggles on a graph," says Robertson. "But a lot of science is publically funded, and the taxpayers who contribute to that deserve a return on their investment. I wouldn't say we should shy away from artist impressions or anything that helps us communicate the results of our work to the public."
Wordsworth agrees, but he adds that scientists could do more as a community to highlight any uncertainty to people when new worlds are announced. Changes in the way exoplanet research is conducted could also help, as upcoming telescopes and space missions move from bulk data collection to intensive study of candidate planetary systems.
"Now we do not just need to detect them, but we want to know more about them," says Udry, and our understanding is continually improving. "That's very positive, even if the price to pay would be to lose a good candidate from time to time."
American Apparel sorry for using Challenger disaster photo
Ryan Parker - Los Angeles Times
American Apparel issued a public apology Thursday after the company posted a stylized picture to its Tumblr page of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
It is unclear if the image was mistaken for fireworks or clouds.
The company was immediately hammered with negative feedback.
In its apology, the company said it was an honest mistake by the social media manager, who was born after the 1986 explosion that killed all seven crew members, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
"We sincerely regret the insensitivity of that selection and the post has been deleted," the company said.
American Apparel has been the focus of media attention in recent weeks after the board voted to replace Dov Charney as chairman and announced its intention to remove him as president and chief executive "for cause," according to the company. Charney has been dogged by lawsuits and allegations of misconduct for years.
Buzz Aldrin meets 'Earth to Echo' stars, talks Apollo anniversary
Adam Poulisse - Pasadena Star-News
If anyone's positive movie review is a ringing endorsement, it's Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
The 84-year-old retired astronaut and second person to walk on the moon walked into his downtown Los Angeles office, still wearing a kippah from the Jewish wedding he just attended (his divorce attorney's, no less).
Waiting for him was Reese Hartwig, 15, and Ella Wahlestedt, 15, and producer Andrew Panay, some of the cast and crew of "Earth to Echo," the new family film out for the Fourth of July. It stars Hartwig and Wahlestedt, among others, as a group of Nevada preteens who find a tiny robotic alien in the middle of the desert. The comparisons to the classic "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" are aplenty.
Aldrin had seen "Earth to Echo" prior to meeting the trio, and gave it a glowing review.
"I thought 'Earth to Echo' was better than 'E.T.,'" Aldrin told them. "I'm not sure how E.T. got here. It wasn't too clear. And he was more of a weird animal-looking (creature). I think we're beginning to move into the world of electronics and robotics and survival of surfaces. E.T. would be fried by the radiation."
Looking around Aldrin's downtown flat, it's obvious he still has the moon on his mind 45 years after being part of the Apollo 11 mission, the first manned lunar landing that blasted off July 20, 1969. Aldrin's space is covered in everything related to the distant rock on which he once kangaroo jumped: A moon pillow. An MTV Music Award trophy that features the cable channel's moon-walking astronaut mascot. Posters, magazines and memorabilia show a younger Aldrin alongside Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, the other members of Apollo 11.
Ever wanted to know what's in Buzz Aldrin's DVD collection? "Fly Me to the Moon" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," among others.
The only thing that didn't reference the moon was the "Dancing with the Stars" mug he was drinking out of, but he even landed on that television show back in 2010.
July 20 marks the 45th anniversary of the lift-off of Apollo 11. It landed the first humans on the moon, while also propelling Aldrin into a national hero and pop culture icon. According to Aldrin, it's the reason technology is what it is today.
"The Silicon Valley, iPhones, iPads and all the communication stuff — security things for military activities, reconnaissance, lenses — all that came from the space program and people don't realize it," Aldrin said.
Aldrin, in fact, was texting on his iPhone.
"(People) say this has more memory," Aldrin continued, holding up his iPhone. "I'm not trying to be facetious but (if) I can throw this up in the air, can it align itself? Can it take a star sighting and find out exactly where it is as it comes down? Can it make a smooth landing?"
"No."
"Well, how can you tell me that this is so much better?" Aldrin went on. "We did the absolute best with the memory we had then. It's a tribute to the cleverness of the people who did that, because, where did they end up? In Silicon Valley. And they made these things because of what we did before."
The absence of human space travel needs to change, according to Aldrin. He even wants to see colonies on Mars one day, he said.
For the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11, Aldrin has announced four goals that he said should be examined to ensure future human flights to space: stronger U.S.-China space relations; lunar exploration; asteroid exploration and Mars exploration and, eventually, colonizing Mars.
The representatives from "Earth" listened to the moon man talk about being the second man to walk on its surface, on the heels of Neil Armstrong. Hartwig, Wahlestedt and Panay listened to Aldrin discuss walking on the moon's squishy surface, Mars, how a 360-pound backpack on Earth weighed the same as a 160-pound man on the moon, or how the smudge marks got on his spacesuit (he never fell, but talcum powder from Armstrong's boots were left behind on one of the ladder rungs, which rubbed off on Aldrin's suit).
"Buzz is a legend, and I was so excited to meet him," Wahlestedt said. "I'm just an actress. He's a legend. I learned so much from him."
Hartwig showed Aldrin his copy of a fourth-grade report he did on Aldrin, which he signed.
"I felt he was just an interesting person to talk about, and now meeting him today is a dream," Hartwig said. "I feel like I can learn a lot from this guy. A lot of acting is experience, and Buzz probably has the most experience of anyone in the world. He's been to the moon, he's been in the Air Force, he's been on "Dancing with the Stars."
Aldrin's office showed a work-in-progress video that will launch in time for the 45th anniversary. Famous faces including J.J. Abrams of "Star Trek" and the upcoming "Star Wars," Neil deGrasse Tyson and John Travolta share where they were when the Moon landing happened. Using #Apollo45 later this month, anyone can upload their reflection video from that historic day.
Aldrin hopes that for the 50th anniversary, things are even bigger.
"The 45th anniversary for many of us is a five-year lead-up to the 50th, which is a big anniversary," Aldrin said, "and some of us are going to make it as big as we can, reflecting on all the benefits."
Space Notebook: Boeing Co., NASA finalize SLS core contract
James Dean – Florida Today
The Boeing Co. will earn $2.8 billion to develop the core stage of NASA's giant Space Launch System exploration rocket, which is targeting a first, uncrewed test launch from Kennedy Space Center in December 2017.
NASA and Boeing last week announced they had finalized the contract upon completion of a review approving the stage's design.
The core stage — standing 212 feet tall with a 27.6-foot diameter — will feed liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to four RS-25 space shuttle main engines. It will be assisted at liftoff by two taller versions of shuttle solid rocket boosters.
The core stage will be built in NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, where shuttle external tanks used to be manufactured. The project is managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Boeing will also study an upper stage that could be used on a bigger version of the rocket, which starts out at 321 feet tall and 5.5 million pounds and would be able to lift 70 metric tons. It's slated to grow to 384 feet, lifting up to 130 metric tons.
NASA expects to spend between $7.7 billion and $8.6 billion to get the entire rocket ready for its first launch. Ground systems supporting that launch at KSC are expected to cost another $3 billion.
The space agency is expected soon to confirm cost and schedule estimates for the initial capabilities and has warned it will have lower confidence it will meet those targets than is typically required for such big-budget programs.
Development of the core stage represents the "critical path" that will determine if the SLS program stays on schedule, according to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO has described NASA's core stage schedule as "aggressive," and flat annual funding remains a top risk.
NASA has not disclosed the cost to build another SLS rocket for the first crewed flight planned around 2021, or the cost to develop the larger versions and to operate the program.
Morpheus success
NASA's Project Morpheus has concluded that a prototype lander's test flight program at Kennedy Space Center met its objectives.
The Morpheus vehicle will remain at KSC through the summer and could potentially fly again if funding materializes in the space agency's 2015 budget year beginning Oct. 1.
The Johnson Space Center-based project tested a liquid methane-powered engine and autonomous landing and hazard avoidance sensors.
A first free flight at KSC in 2012 ended with a crash, but the replacement "Bravo" vehicle returned last fall to complete a dozen flights.
Six down, six to go
The Air Force is officially halfway through its deployment of a dozen new-generation GPS spacecraft.
Boeing confirmed recently that the last Global Positioning System IIF satellite to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on May 16, has completed testing in orbit.
The seventh satellite is targeting a July 31 launch from Cape Canaveral by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
New home
Boeing in January confirmed rumors that the Air Force's classified X-37B space plane, which it operates, would move into at least one former shuttle hangar at Kennedy Space Center.
The Air Force had no comment, but now apparently does not mind advertizing the secretive program's local presence.
Doors on Orbiter Processing Facility-1, visible to any passing tour bus, have been painted blue with the white, all-caps message: "Home of the X-37B."
One of two reusable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicles remains in orbit after launching from the Cape in December 2012. Two prior flights have landed autonomously at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but there has been speculation this one could touch down on KSC's former shuttle runway.
Antares ready
Orbital Sciences Corp. has confirmed plans for a 1:40 p.m. Friday launch from Virginia of cargo to the International Space Station, the second of eight resupply missions under a $1.9 billion NASA contract.
Engineers cleared the company's Antares rocket for flight after performing a series of inspections on its two AJ26 main engines.
The inspections were recommended after an AJ26 slated to fly next year failed a test in Mississippi.
The Antares rocket will launch a Cygnus spacecraft packed with 3,653 pounds of cargo. It's expected to berth at the ISS on July 15 and remain there for one month.
The launch starts a busy period of cargo deliveries: Russian and European freighters are expected to follow this month, and SpaceX could launch its next resupply mission from the Cape in August.
Educator moves on
NASA last week announced that Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger was the latest astronaut to depart the agency, leaving "for other pursuits" in the Seattle area.
The 39-year-old was one of three "educator astronauts" selected in 2004, along with Ricky Arnold and Joe Acaba, who spent a year teaching science at Melbourne High.
KSC Director Bob Cabana, then head of the astronaut office at Johnson Space Center, called the Washington State high school teacher to tell her she was hired. She flew on Discovery during a 2010 mission resupplying the International Space Station.
Metcalf-Lindenburger left as a "management astronaut." NASA is down to 43 active astronauts eligible for flights to the International Space Station. The agency had individual astronaut classes that were almost as big during the shuttle era, adding 35 astronauts in 1978 and 1996.
ISS mission from Wallops set to launch July 11
Carol Vaughn – DelmarvaNow
Orbital Sciences Corp.'s second cargo supply mission to the International Space Station will be launched from Wallops Island on Friday, July 11, according to a mission update.
Orbital Sciences Corp.'s second cargo supply mission to the International Space Station will lift off from Wallops Island on Friday, July 11, according to a mission update.
The targeted time for the launch of the Orb-2 mission is 1:40 p.m. The Antares rocket should be visible in the sky after launch over a large portion of the East Coast.
The launch sequence will take about 10 minutes, after which the Cygnus cargo spacecraft will separate from the Antares rocket carrying it.
It will take about four days for the spacecraft to reach the International Space Station, where it will remain for 40 days while astronauts unload cargo and then reload the craft with items for disposal.
The mission is one of eight commercial cargo supply missions planned under Orbital's contract with NASA.
The mission, originally scheduled for June, was pushed back twice after a rocket engine destined for use on a cargo supply mission next year failed during testing at Stennis Space Center in May.
The engineering team investigating the failure of the AJ26 engine recommended the two AJ26 engines on the Antares rocket being used for the Orb-2 mission undergo certain inspections before the mission goes forward.
"These inspections were recently completed and program officials have cleared the rocket for flight," a July 3 release from Orbital said.
The Cygnus spacecraft was to be mated to the rocket July 3, after which remaining, time-sensitive cargo will be loaded.
More than 3,600 pounds of cargo will be taken to the space station on this trip and astronauts at the station will load the spacecraft with about almost 3,000 pounds of trash to be disposed of when the craft burns up upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.
The rocket is scheduled to be rolled out to Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Launch Pad 0A on Wallops Island on July 9.
Launch time on July 11 is 1:40:27 p.m. from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA Television coverage will begin at 1 p.m.
A launch on July 11 will result in the rendezvous and grapple of Cygnus by Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson of NASA and Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency at 7:24 a.m. on Tuesday, July 15
NASA-TV also will provide coverage of Cygnus' berthing to Harmony beginning at 9:30 a.m.
Cygnus will remain berthed to the station until Aug. 15.
Real-Life 'Gravity' - Cosmonauts Train to Survive Space Crisis
Matthew Bodner – The Moscow Times
Floating on a small pond near Star City, a town that 30 years ago was closed to foreigners, an international crew of Russian, Japanese and American astronauts crammed into an old Soyuz training module to practice the skills that will save their lives if they are forced to evacuate the International Space Station during their 2016 space mission.
This training is but one small piece of an exhaustive two year process by which Russian cosmonauts and foreign astronauts learn each other's languages and forge the bonds that will allow them to work together seamlessly in the unforgiving environment of space.
"Right now we are training them to work as a team of three. They must trust each other, help each other, and manage each other," Viktor Ren, the deputy head of the Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center's Office of Research and Testing, told reporters at the training exercise on Wednesday.
The crew includes veteran cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin — a former Russian fighter pilot who served aboard ISS in 2011 — and rookie astronauts Takuya Onishi of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA's own Kate Rubins. Both Rubins and Onishi are looking ahead to their first trip to space, having only been selected for the astronaut corps in 2011.
By the time Expedition 48/49 launches to ISS in 2016, they will have mastered the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the plethora of systems and equipment awaiting them aboard ISS and — most challenging of all — Russian grammar.
"For me rocket science is much less complicated than Russian grammar and vocabulary. So one of the more difficult, but frankly more interesting and fun aspects of spaceflight is that part of it," said Daniel Burbank, NASA's new head of operations at the training center and veteran of two U.S. Space Shuttle missions and a stay aboard ISS in 2011.
Before they launch in 2016, the crew will fly back and forth multiple times between Houston and Star City, located about 30 kilometers northeast of Moscow, while stopping off regularly at the training centers of the Canadian, European and Japanese space agencies. They will set off to Houston next week for further training before returning to Star City in September.
Water Landings
But before leaving for Houston, the crew of Expedition 48/49 had to go through a training session that envisioned a situation straight out of the recent blockbuster "Gravity." In the event that something catastrophic takes place aboard the station, the crew will hop aboard one or two Soyuz escape pods for an immediate descent back to Earth.
Depending on the timing, Soyuz might not be in a position to land at one of its predesignated recovery zones. With more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface covered by water, the chances of an ocean landing are high, and the crew must learn how to survive in the ocean until rescue teams arrive.
One of the first things the crew needs to do is take off their spacesuits — something Sandra Bullock's character should have done in "Gravity" before trying to exit the Soyuz capsule.
"Generally speaking, we like to do this training in the summer time, as the added heat and carbon dioxide buildup in the Soyuz makes it more difficult for the crew," Burbank said.
The Soviets incorporated water survival exercises into their cosmonaut training program after the 1976 Soyuz-23 mission landed in Kazakhstan's Lake Tengiz - the first time a Soyuz capsule had splashed down in a body of water. The lake was partially frozen and covered in a thick fog, complicating recovery efforts. In total, the Soyuz crew had to wait 9 hours for rescue teams to arrive.
The training is conducted an hour outside Star City, on a small pond on the premises of a base for Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry. There, instructors from the cosmonaut training center worked with engineers from the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation — the company that builds Soyuz — to ready the bright-orange, bell-shaped Soyuz training capsule.
While the Expedition 48/49 crew wrestled their way into their off-white Sokol spacesuits in a tent just beyond the tree-line, the Soyuz capsule was strapped to a large crane and hoisted into the water. When the capsule was released from the crane's grasp, Energia's team opened the hatch and jumped in to power it up.
As the assembled news teams jumped into gear, the crew made their way to the dock. The team's commander, Ivanishin, stopped to explain that what would take place inside the floating spacecraft was a little bit "like a cartoon."
"Taking off the spacesuit and putting on the wet-suit [inside the capsule] is not easy. But, we are trying to do it again," Ivanishin said.
With the crew inside Soyuz, three dinghies towed the capsule to the center of the pond while an Emergency Services helicopter buzzed the scene. A team of divers in wet-suits anchored the orange bell in place, and the wait began.
For almost two hours, the only signs of action were seen through a small porthole on the capsule's side. Inside, the crew struggled to take off the spacesuits and put on their orange survival gear in the confines of the notoriously small Soyuz cabin.
Finally the crew opened the hatch, clawed their way out of the vehicle, and one-by-one plopped back first into the pond before swimming together and lighting a flare.
This was all part of a larger series of emergency landing and survival scenarios that they will rehearse during their stints in Star City over the next two years. When winter comes, they will train to survive an emergency landing in the Taiga, where the average winter temperature can drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius.
The Language Barrier
While the survival trainings may be rigorous, there is an even tougher challenge ahead. Although English is the lingua franca aboard the International Space Station, the Soyuz spacecraft that transports crews to the space station and back has been an entirely Russian affair since the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet in 2011, and astronauts, as a result, are required to learn Russian.
"[Depending on their job], we want our U.S. crews be at the Intermediate-High or Intermediate-Low level. And, of course, the expectation is that they will advance over the course of their approximately two-year training," Burbank said.
Translators accompany astronauts through most of their training to act as a crutch when crew members get stuck on words during lessons. But there is no room to spare in the cramped cockpit of the Soyuz simulator, so the astronauts quickly learn to use the Russian they will need in space.
To bolster their technical vocabularies with everyday language, NASA and its partner agencies even send their astronauts to live with Russian families for four to six weeks, if the training schedule permits.
"We all enjoy that particular aspect of [training,]" Burbank said, "it is really rewarding."
A form of "Ruslish" has emerged over the years on ISS, Burbank added.
Learning each other's languages it not just a matter of convenience. To work together in space, astronauts and cosmonauts must learn to anticipate each other's moves and work together seamlessly.
This deeply felt trust and understanding was clear in the tightly integrated community of NASA and Roscosmos officials at the training center, where space officials on both sides spoke highly of each other and professed a shared commitment to international cooperation in space.
The breakdown of relations between the U.S. and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine has cast doubts on the future of the International Space Station partnership, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in April that Russia may not accept NASA's proposal to extend the program beyond its current 2020 expiration date.
But on the ground the partnership shows no signs of flagging, as representatives of the 15 partner nations work together tirelessly to prepare their astronauts and cosmonauts for one of mankind's most dangerous, and ambitious, undertakings.
'It Just Takes Your Breath Away': What It's Like To Step Into Space For The First Time
Drake Baer – Business Insider
It was the night of Dec. 20 and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins couldn't sleep.
The next day he'd be making his first space walk, stepping out of the airlock to replace a refrigerator-sized piece of equipment on the outside of the International Space Station.
"The night before, all your training is done," Hopkins says. "You're prepared, you've got your tools ready, your suit's ready: It's really just a matter of now going out and executing. Yet it's very difficult to get to sleep."
He was just about halfway through a 166-day stint on the ISS.
Hopkins, 45, grew up near Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. He attended the University of Illinois, where he studied engineering and captained the football team, before getting his master's at Stanford University. From there he joined the Air Force. Then, in July 2009, NASA selected Hopkins as one of the 14 members of the 20th astronaut class.
He finished Astronaut Candidate Training in November 2011, which, according to NASA, includes "scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in International Space Station systems, Extravehicular Activity (EVA), robotics, physiological training, T 38 flight training and water and wilderness survival training."
But the night before the spacewalk, he fell back on his days of captaining the Fighting Illini. When you've got a big game the next day, you have to keep your mind from mentally rehearsing the day's performance.
So, as an astronaut does, he watched the finest in science-fiction television: an episode of the cult hit "Firefly."
Then the next day came. It was time to perform.
The prep process is a long one. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to eat once he got his space suit on, Hopkins loaded up on cereal, fruit, and granola bars. After eating comes the clothing.
It takes four to five hours for an astronaut to get suited up and out the door. You don three layers of apparel. First you put on a pair of long underwear and breathe through a mask supplying pure oxygen — this prevents you from getting dizzy when air pressure changes. You add a tube-filled cooling garment to keep you chill during the whole process. Then comes the 300-lb. suit.
That's where the whole outer-space thing comes in handy.
"The microgravity makes doing some things harder," Hopkins says, "but sometimes it makes it a little bit easier as well — once you have those pants on, it makes getting into the upper torso a little easier."
After connecting the suit, you put the gloves and helmet on. Then more oxygen. You gather up all your tools for the job. You put on a safety pack, which is like a jet pack, just in case you drift away from the station while you're working.
You head into the airlock, closing the hatch behind you. You pump all the air back into the station, turning the airlock into a vacuum. This takes a while, since you have to clear your ears and check your equipment and make sure there aren't any leaks.
Then you crank the handle of the outer hatch, take it into an unlock position, release the latching mechanism, and let the hatch pop in and slide up.
You float out.
"All of a sudden you look out there and there's nothing between you and the Earth," Hopkins says. "It just takes your breath away."
That's when the training — done in a zero-gravity-mimicking pool back on Earth — kicks in.
"It's, like, 'OK, I've got a job to do here,'" Hopkins says.
Outside, Hopkins works with his colleague Rick Mastracchio to replace a failed pump module on the side of the International Space Station. It's a refrigerator-sized unit that circulates a coolant around the station, allowing for all the computers (and experiments) to run at their fullest capacity.
Once you're outside, you have to be very deliberate with your movements, Hopkins says. That 300-lb. suit might not weigh anything in microgravity but "that mass, once it's going in one direction, it wants to keep going in one direction," he says.
Because of that, you have to be controlled and methodical with the way you move, which can be difficult, given that being in a spacesuit is like wearing the most gigantic parka you can find and wearing the thickest sky gloves you can get your hands in.
Aside from the microgravity and the space suit, the job is pretty straightforward: Hopkins and Mastracchio disconnect the fluid lines and electrical lines to the failed unit, undo the bolts, and then grab the backup unit attached to the ISS and install that.
They started the job on the 21st and would finish it on the 24th.
"You just start walking through the procedures that you've trained in," Hopkins says, "and all of a sudden it's seven and half hours later and you're coming back in."
Back inside the station, it's the reverse of the earlier process: unsuiting.
Replacing the cooling unit, Hopkins explains, is part of one of an astronaut's main three duties: science, maintenance, and exercise. The spacewalk was like keeping a house in order, the orbital equivalent of cleaning out the gutters.
But first and foremost, he and the rest of the ISS team are scientists, often acting as the eyes, ears, and hands of experimenters on the ground. The third duty is exercise. Since microgravity does weird things to the human body, every astronaut schedules at least an hour of exercise per day.
Then there's downtime: communicating with his wife and sons back home, updating social media, and taking pictures.
"The vantage point of seeing the earth from 260 miles up never gets old," Hopkins says. "You can see these clouds from the horizon, from the rim of the Earth. They stand up out in the atmosphere. The oceans and the mountains and the deserts, the way the sand dunes form these amazing geometric patterns by the wind. It's really incredible. The city lights at night. The storms, you see lightning from above. Then you get these scenes of the moon coming up — it takes your breath away."
Catching up with Cohasset's astronaut Steve Bowen
Jill Michaels - The Wicked Local (MA)
This week, Bowen has returned to town to visit family members in Cohasset and Hanover. His schedule also included two astronaut appearances: visiting the Weymouth Public Library on Tuesday and the Discovery Museums in Acton on Wednesday.
If he couldn't fly as an astronaut, he might have liked to serve as a lighthouse keeper.
That's just one revelation that the Cohasset Mariner discovered last Friday (June 27) when checking in with Cohasset native Steve Bowen. Three years have passed since the space shuttle retired — and we last called up Bowen in his office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"I'm still in the EVA branch," Bowen confirmed, referencing the division of the Astronaut Office that focuses on extravehicular activity, or spacewalks.
Selected as an astronaut in 2000, Bowen was serving as EVA branch chief in early 2011 when unexpected circumstances converged to assign him to STS-133 Discovery, his third shuttle flight. He also flew on STS-126 Endeavour in 2008 and STS-132 Atlantis in 2010. During his 40-plus days in space, he performed 7 spacewalks totaling nearly 48 hours.
Bowen — a laid-back 50-year-old with a warm sense of humor pleasantly spiked with occasional Boston sarcasm — joked that he passed off the baton of branch chief duties to Dan Burbank, an adopted native of Yarmouth Port on Cape Cod, and then to Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL born in Salem but raised in York, Maine.
Burbank and Cassidy have each spent nearly six months working and living on the International Space Station (ISS).
"I've been studying Russian and working on my robotics qualification," continued Bowen.
Although the retired Navy Captain finished his robotics training last spring, Bowen still completes the proficiencies that NASA requires periodically from astronauts qualified as operators of the Canadian-built ISS robotic arm.
All the linguistic and robotics training imply that Bowen is currently flowing through the pipeline that astronauts travel before receiving an ISS flight assignment.
"I traveled to Montréal for training for several weeks," Bowen said.
"In March, I visited Moscow for a month of immersion training," a practical way to test his Russian language skills.
Despite the Crimea clamor erupting in March, "I visited the (U.S.) Embassy for language classes every day.
"Moscow is an international city. It was somewhat transparent," he explained. "I just avoided the areas where they were protesting."
With classic Boston understatement, Bowen quipped: "It was an interesting place to be at the time."
In May, Bowen participated in NASA's first underwater interview from the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL). During their scuba-like dive, Bowen and astronaut Stan Love tested a modified launch-and-entry spacesuit from the shuttle era. The video, originally broadcast on NASA TV, is posted on YouTube.
The EVA Branch is preparing for contingencies that may arise for returning flight crews aboard Orion and for NASA's asteroid sample and exploration mission. The asteroid will be the first mission for Orion, the spacecraft designed to take astronauts first beyond low earth orbit and someday to Mars.
Until then, astronauts are flying on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to and from the ISS.
"Of the six EVAs performed in the last year, two were planned," Bowen elaborated. "We write the procedures for unexpected repairs on orbit."
Then the ISS astronauts sometimes have to perform those spacewalks without ever practicing the procedures beforehand.
The team's success "validates the training," stated Bowen.
Keeping Up Appearances
All his hard work in Bay Area Houston does not mean that Bowen has forgotten his roots in the Bay State.
"In January, I spoke to students in Quincy, Norwell and Silver Lake Regional High School," said Bowen.
This week, Bowen has returned to town to visit family members in Cohasset and Hanover. His schedule also included two astronaut appearances: visiting the Weymouth Public Library on Tuesday and the Discovery Museums in Acton on Wednesday.
"Visiting libraries is something different for me," Bowen confided.
"I'll have to modify my presentation somewhat" to accommodate a smaller, potentially older crowd. "I'll have to talk about more things," he joked.
During a traditional astronaut appearance, the audience watches a NASA montage video of shuttle mission highlights as the astronaut narrates memories and anecdotes from the flight. After a question-and-answer period, the special guest will often participate in a brief meet-and-greet session.
Bowen seems to genuinely appreciate each opportunity to interact with South Shore residents. When his NASA workload permits, he willingly accommodates Boston-area appearance requests (usually facilitated by the non-profit One Giant Leap in Groton).
But those who know him well quickly recognize that Bowen secretly prefers a very low-key version of NASA's official astronaut appearance.
Okay, then, what is Bowen's dream appearance in Cohasset?
"Just walking around town," he replied. "Talking with people."
As an example, Bowen recounted his experience walking in Cohasset's Memorial Day Parade in 2011.
He added: "I'd rather talk one-on-one with people over coffee."
Or perhaps ice cream?
Bowen laughed, an acknowledgment of his fondness for the dessert.
What is his favorite flavor? "It depends on my mood."
Out of modesty, he did not mention Cohastronaut, the ice cream flavor created in his honor by Nona's Homemade in Hingham.
Got Lighthouses?
During our 42-minute phone call, Bowen revealed that he also feeds another passion: a fondness for lighthouses.
When asked to relate any Cohasset anecdote, Bowen remembered learning to sail at the Cohasset Sailing Club on Government Island.
The former Navy submariner likewise recalled the club's copper replica of the Minot's Ledge lighthouse.
With hometown pride, Bowen detailed how Cohasset is the demarcation between the rocky coast of northern New England and the sandy beaches of the South Shore.
During his nostalgic musings, Bowen looked up an old article then advertising Minot's Light, one mile off the shores of Cohasset and Scituate. He reminisced about seeing at night the lighthouse's one-four-three flashing signature —"I love you" in local lore.
The conversation slowly drifted back into current events. Bowen's older son, Nick, a newly minted college graduate, just published his first freelance article in the Galveston County Daily News.
Nevertheless, in this astronaut's veins runs seawater, not blood.
With plenty of wistfulness in his voice (and scarcely any sarcasm), Bowen suddenly announced: "If I had a lot of money to waste, I'd buy a lighthouse."
How to be an ASTRONAUT: ISS worker reveals what you need to take the next giant leap for mankind
David Crookes – All About Space
- All About Space magazine reveals the steps to becoming an astronaut
- Good education, aircraft experience, language skills and fitness are key
- Space agencies want people who can separate emotion from a situation
- 'You work hard up there, but you have those moments where you just get to stop for a little while and watch the world go by,' said Jeremy Hansen
So much has happened since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969.
Today, we have the International Space Station, plans to send manned missions to Mars, telescopes that can see beyond our solar system and agencies across the world aiming to put men and women into space.
If you would love to explore space as a career, you couldn't have picked a better time, especially given the number of private space tourism companies looking to send members of the public high above the Earth.
A word of warning: it's not going to be an easy ride and you'll be entering a competitive arena of the best and the brightest.
If there were ever a stark example of why it pays to absorb as much as possible at school, then the space industry is it.
JEREMY HANSEN TALKS ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO BE AN ASTRONAUT
Astronauts are trained to go into space either as a commander, pilot or crew member of a spacecraft.
Having been selected in May 2009 as one of 14 members of the 20th Nasa astronaut class, Major Jeremy Hansen is one of four active Canadian astronauts.
He trains in spacewalk and robotics, takes part in geological expeditions and he has established a new training program to simulate a week on board the ISS.
All About Space: What is it like being an astronaut – what opportunities are there?
Jeremy Hansen: I am trained to go into space by Nasa at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, but I am hired for Canada.
Currently we're not flying a lot of people into space but, in say five years from now, I think we're going to see some rapid changes developing, particularly with commercial companies getting involved, changing the map of how many people are flying in space and the types of things we're doing with respect to space exploration.
AAS: How did you become an astronaut?
JH: I have a specific recollection as a child of looking at a picture of Neil Armstrong standing on the Moon and just thinking that's incredible. It inspired me to fly.
As I grew older, I decided I would fly fighter jets so I served as a CF-18 fighter pilot, having joined the Air Cadet Program in Canada when I was 12.
Flight experience is important if you want to be an astronaut pilot: you need at least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time in a jet aircraft. It meant, when the Canadian Space Agency asked for applications, I could put my name forward. And that's what I did.
AAS: What is the training like?
JH: It's very challenging and diverse. No two days are the same. I've been in Canada training on a robot arm recently and I'll be doing fighter jet training after that.
Then I'll be back in Houston for space walk training. I've spent a lot of time studying languages. You need Russian to fly on Russian rockets. The list goes on and on.
This past Fall I went on a caving expedition where I spent a week learning how to be a caver, and then I spent the next week with five other astronauts living in a cave for an entire week, without a map, doing real science on behalf of other scientists.
AAS: Is there such a thing as a typical day?
JH: The most typical days involve systems training for the International Space Station. The most gruelling ones are in an enormous pressurised pool in Houston, Texas. It's a full-scale mock-up of the ISS underwater and you wear the real space suit they use for spacewalks.
It simulates microgravity as best we can. You just spend an entire day in a suit going out and executing a real spacewalk plan, fixing items that have failed outside the space station.
AAS: What is life like on the ISS?
JH: Every astronaut, when they return, says it's busy, that you work hard up there, but you have those moments where you just get to stop for a little while and watch the world go by. There's an area in the space station where you have this 360-degree view and you can view the planets straight below you so you can see where you're going and where you've been. That is true exploration.
AAS: What sort of things do you need to study?
We study geology because we are preparing to go beyond lower orbit. Spacecraft are being designed, techniques are being thought up, we're looking at science that we want to do on asteroids and maybe eventually on the Moon, but certainly on Mars which is our long-term goal and a lot of this is going to be based on understanding the geology of our Solar System and trying to unravel some of the clues. We dedicated a bit of our training time to the study of geology, as it's one of those skill sets that's better learned slowly over time to make you a better geologist in space when you get there.
Unless you have a solid background in science and maths, showing great aptitude for both, many doors will be closed to you. It may sound negative, but it's very much the harsh truth.
For those that make it through, the universe is very much your oyster, so to speak. Space is one of the most exciting industries in the solar system with new advances and fresh breakthroughs taking place regularly.
Whether you become an astronaut and find yourself on a rocket hurtling to a far-flung planet or whether you love to bury your head in research and test incredible theories, the possibilities are wide-open.
Who knows – you may even be the one who finally discovers life on another planet.
Astronauts have a clear aim: to shoot into the darkness of space to explore and further human knowledge of the universe.
Of all of the jobs in the space industry, this is potentially the most exciting and certainly the most-recognisable role.
But it's not an easy job to get and there are certain barriers in your way before you even start. Although jobs are increasingly available via private companies, opportunities tend to be restricted given that agencies recruit from their own citizenship.
So to be a Nasa astronaut, you need to be an American citizen, Esa looks for Europeans and the Russian Space Agency wants Russians (Russian astronauts are called cosmonauts). What's more, each one is after a high standard of candidate.
The cost of training an astronaut is huge, so they need to find the very best people from the outset. This is not a role you can learn at university and it will take years of preparation before a successful candidate jets off into space. Even then, flight opportunities are limited.
Yet for those who are successful, a career as an astronaut is hugely rewarding. There are two types – pilots and mission specialists – but both suit people who want to learn and who know how to learn.
Pilots will fly the shuttle and dock it with the ISS, or another satellite that needs servicing or retrieving. These pilots tend to be picked from the armed forces.
Mission astronauts accompany the pilots and work on various research tasks. They will also repair and maintain equipment. The role evolves and needs fresh knowledge and understanding as the years go by.
The job also needs operational skills since astronauts are often put in a position where things aren't going their way, making life uncomfortable, intimidating and scary.
The key is how people react to the situation they are in – space agencies want people who can separate emotion from the situation and think critically, looking for solutions.
This means the training is varied and the job is demanding, fun and challenging. Astronauts will find themselves in extreme situations on Earth and in space, whether it is being flown as part of a team to the Arctic on an aeroplane and left for days at a time to explore and survive, or being stationed on the ISS where they experience weightlessness in cramped conditions. It's all part and parcel of this amazing job.
In space, it's hard to think about a typical day since an astronaut will see 15 dawns every 24 hours. As well as trying to get into a new sleeping rhythm, astronauts need to work.
On the ISS this may involve supervising experiments or maintaining station equipment. Work on the ISS is supported by astronauts on the ground and that is important in furthering space exploration.
They look at the effects of space on the human body, looking at bone-loss in microgravity, or at radiation levels. Space walks and robotics figure highly and it all helps to develop systems and processes that will one day see humans set foot on Mars.
Astronauts training today may well get that opportunity within the lifespan of their career and there is no greater motivation than that.
Russian mission control center to lift ISS orbit
ITAR-TASS News Agency
The ISS orbit altitude goes down 150-200 meters daily affected by the ground gravity impact and other factors
Russian Mission Control Centre stated on Friday that a maneuver to increase the average altitude of the International Space Station (ISS) flight orbit was planned on July 17. The ISS orbit will be lifted at 5 am Moscow time (02:00 UTC) on Thursday, July 17 by engines of Zvezda module. Orbit adjustment is aimed at optimizing the docking of Progress M-24M space freighter, which will be launched July 24 at 1:42 am Moscow time (22:42 UTC, July 23) from Baikonur spaceport.
The ISS orbit altitude goes down 150-200 meters daily affected by the ground gravity impact and other factors.
Progress M-24M will replace space freighter Progress M-23M, which will undock from the ISS on July 22. The cargo spacecraft will be sunken in the Pacific on August 1.
Space freighters are used frequently as orbital laboratories. Progress space freighters placed into orbit Russian and German mini-satellites and examined possible use of ejection seat system to save the crew of Russian space shuttle Buran. Space freighters carried out the experiment called Izgib ("curve") to study the influence of on-board systems functioning modes on ISS flight conditions. Several space freighters are equipped with a special capsule, which had brought up to 60 kg of cargoes back to the Earth. Progress M-13M was used for the first time before sinking to test a special launch container, which separated successfully from micro-satellite Chibis-M. In 2003, Progress M1-10 after its undocking from the ISS has been monitoring the areas of natural disasters and ecological catastrophes with special cameras.
Progress M-23M that is currently on a space mission will carry out an experiment called Radar-Progress to determine specific features of the ionosphere, which are emerging in operation of space freighter engines.
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