Sen. Grassley wants answers on Google execs' air fleet leasing at NASA field, The Hill

"Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wants to know if Google is getting a sweetheart deal from its lease of a California airfield operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, Grassley inquires as to "troubling allegations" regarding the fleet of aircraft owned by Google executives at California's Moffett Airfield, a former Naval Air station now operated by NASA."

Keith's note: Grassley's ace investigators seem to be unaware of the fact that the deal Google has for aviation fuel at Moffett Field is between Google and the USAF - NASA is not a part of it. Also, it would cost significantly less for Google to house its fleet at SJC or SFO than it does at Moffett Field where Google is paying premium price - and their jets are available for NASA to use. In addition, I am told that the 5% figure cited by Grassley for science flights is wrong - it is actually 15%. Other stories refer to "humanitarian groups" being denied access. Apparently a single, small organization run by an individual with no airplanes tried to get a deal. Its hard to store something that you do not have.

If this is a "sweatheart deal" then NASA is the one benefitting the most. Stay tuned. Oh yes, this agreement was initially negotiated and signed in 2007 when Romney space advisor Mike Griffin was NASA Administrator. Griffin approved of it. An extension was signed in 2011 when Bolden was Administrator - and he approved of it also.

NASA Lends Galaxy Evolution Explorer to Caltech

"NASA is lending the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, where the spacecraft will continue its exploration of the cosmos. In a first-of-a-kind move for NASA, a Space Act Agreement was signed May 14 so the university soon can resume spacecraft operations and data management for the mission using private funds."

Keith's note: Wow. Is NASA going to adopt this approach for the reuse of other spacecraft? This could be very interesting.

NASA Will Not Fly Next Mars Rover Until 2020, Aviation Week

"But the fact remains that "the train has left the station," as NASA Planetary Science Director Jim Green said when asked if more funding would allow NASA to resume joint Mars exploration work with the European Space Agency. ESA has shifted to partnering with Russia for Mars exploration after NASA's bailout. [Orlando] Figueroa, heading the Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG) as it drafts a downscoped, go-it-alone Mars exploration program, told planetary scientists on the NASA Advisory Council May 8 the $700-800 million that will be available for robotic Mars exploration by 2018 under the new NASA budget request will not support a rover. "A stationary lander may be possible in 2018," Figueroa says. "A mobile lander, a rover, doesn't fit the budget we have available, so we need to jump one opportunity to generate enough funds to be able to do it."

Keith's note: Well, it sounds like the career NASA SMD bureaucrats have already made up their minds as to what they want NASA to do, what they want you think NASA cannot do, and who cares what anyone else thinks. So why bother going through the Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG) proceess? Let's face it: people like Figueroa, Green et al are fresh out of ideas, focused simply on lowering expectations, and content upon doing routine Powerpoint presentations for meetings where nothing of importance is ever decided.

Poor NASA. It has already forgotten how to do low-cost, out-of-the-box Mars missions like Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity rovers. Very depressing. Is this any way to explore the solar system?

- NASA's Out of Date Search for Life on Mars, earlier post
- NASA's Mars Program Planning Group: Same Old Answers or Open To New Ideas?, earlier post

Private Sector Edges Deeper in Space, NY Times

"The only way to make a dramatic reduction of price is to assume a dramatic increase of launches," said Mr. Greason of XCOR. "You have to assume there is some market, that there will be enough demand to support that low price." The current rockets -- most of them good for one launching only -- are very expensive regardless of whether they are built by entrepreneurs or government. The future of low-cost travel in space hinges on reusable rockets and technologies not yet developed, space experts say."

Astronaut Don Pettit Recreates the Stargate Sequence From "2001".

"Below is a frame from the "Stargate Sequence" from the iconic film "2001: A Space Odyssey". These three images below are a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station. Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit is the photographer. It would seem that he has managed to recreate the stargate sequence - in space."

Grading CASIS On its ISS National Laboratory Performance Thus Far

"Clearly the clock is ticking. Given CASIS' chronic tardiness and lack of performance thus far, by the end of June NASA and Congress will either know a lot more about what CASIS has been doing and plans to do with the ISS - or they'll be asking if it is time to pull the plug on this half-hearted management experiment and try again. Meanwhile, this amazing facility orbits overhead while its return on investment diminishes with every single day that it continues to be underutilized."

NASA's Inconsistent Support of the International Space Apps Challenge

"Several weeks ago NASA and a number of sponsors held the International Space Apps Challenge. The intent was to enlist people from all across the world to create solutions to problems and issues associated with spaceflight. The participants were truly spread out across our planet including Antarctica with support from the crew aboard the International Space Station. ... I think it is inexcusable that NASA has not made more of an effort to promote things such as the International Space Apps Challenge - especially when the White House places such a priority on things like this. There is much risk in this ad hoc and dysfunctional public engagement policy at NASA. Now that the first apps challenge event was such a success, efforts like this could continue - without overt NASA involvement - thus making NASA less - rather than more relevant."

An Article of Hope, Kickstarter

"Dawn is breaking on the morning of February 1, 2003 above West Texas. Suddenly the peace of the early morning is shattered by two loud bangs. The Space Shuttle Columbia is announcing its return home ... Gone is its precious cargo of seven astronauts from around the world. Among them, Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first Astronaut. Also gone, an artifact that embodied the glory of the Shuttle's mission and the despair of its demise: a tiny Torah scroll - smuggled into a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust; safeguarded by Joachim Joseph, a Holocaust survivor; and carried into space by Col. Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut."

AIP FYI: FY 2013 Appropriations Committee Reports: NASA

"Not surprisingly, considering the size of NASA's budget and its wide range of programs, the appropriators included extensive language in the House and Senate reports accompanying the funding bills regarding NASA. This FYI provides report language regarding the agency's science program. Language within each report on all programs stands, unless there is a conflict that will be resolved in the final conference report. This final conference report, likely to be written in late fall, will also resolve differences in recommended funding levels."

Keith's note: John Llewellyn, Apollo era flight controller "Black RETRO", died on Tuesday. Details to follow.

"Houston, We've Had a Problem", Jim Lovell

"In Mission Control the Gold Team, directed by Gerald Griffin (seated, back of head to camera), prepares to take over from Black Team (Glynn Lunney, seated, in profile) during a critical period. Seven men with elbows on console are Deke Slayton, Joe Kerwin (Black CapCom), Vance Brand (Gold CapCom), Phil Shaffer (Gold FIDO), John Llewellyn (Black RETRO), Charles Deiterich (Gold RETRO), and Lawrence Canin (Black GNC). Standing at right is Chester Lee, Mission Director from NASA's Washington headquarters, and broad back at right belogs to Rocco Petrone, Apollo Program Director. Apollo 13 had two other "ground" teams, the White and the Maroon. All devised heroic measures to save the mission from disaster."

Chairman Hall Statement on Passage of Science Appropriations Bill

"Importantly, this bill maintains development of a new heavy-lift launch system and crew capsule. It maintains a healthy space science enterprise, continues to support innovative aeronautics research, and funds the Administration's commercial crew program at the authorized level of $500 million. Our Committee will continue to provide oversight of the commercial crew program and work with Appropriators to support a program that has the best chance to succeed on schedule, with appropriate safeguards for the crew, and with the best use of taxpayer dollars."

NASA Budget Takes $126M Hit on House Floor, Space News

"But by midnight, the House voted 206 to 204 to adopt an amendment offered by Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) to take $126 million out of NASA's Cross Agency Support account -- which covers overhead at the agency's nine government-run field centers -- and move it to the Justice Department's COPS community policing program. With the additional cut, NASA would see its budget shrink by $324 million -- a 1.8 percent drop compared to 2012."

Keith's note: Congressional sources report that some people had a problem getting in touch with NASA Legislative Affairs AA Seth Statler during recent House budget deliberations. These sessions are seen as crucial hand-to-hand combat - a time when the Code L AA is expected to be in the trenches ready to work behind the scenes at a moment's notice.

NASA's James Hansen Slams Obama's Failure to Lead on Climate, Rolling Stone

"President Obama can't catch a break: Just when he gets right with the gays, the greens come after him. In today's New York Times NASA's leading climate scientist James Hansen takes the president to task for not doing jack on climate change. "President Obama speaks of a 'planet in peril,'" Hansen fumes, "but he does not provide the leadership needed to change the world's course."

NASA Administrator Announces Webb Telescope Management Change

"NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced today that Geoff Yoder will assume leadership responsibilities for the James Webb Space Telescope, serving as program director at the agency's headquarters in Washington, effective June 30, 2012. He succeeds Rick Howard, who retires on that date."

Comments by Charles Bolden at the COMSTAC Advisory Committee Public Meeting

"The key to achieving our goal of facilitating a strong commercial space industry is adequate funding and good old-fashioned American competition. We are working hard to maintain both. NASA's 2013 request for commercial crew development is $830 million. Despite a bi-partisan agreement to ensure American astronauts are traveling into space on U.S. built spacecraft as soon as possible, some want to short-change this job-creating initiative and limit competition in the commercial space arena."

CASIS Expects To Send First Payloads to ISS by Early 2013, Space News

"What we're looking for are some of those very specific examples of things that can be done better in space than on Earth," Timothy Yeatman, CASIS's interim chief scientist, said. Protein crystallization best fits the bill, Yeatman said, citing the decision of a blue-ribbon panel of science experts CASIS convened to evaluate which scientific fields were likeliest to be advanced through in-space experiments."

Keith's note: Growing perfect crystals in space (on the Space Shuttle and Space Station) has been one of NASA's favorite promotional items in its mantra of promoting the use of the ISS as a "world class laboratory". The need for large crystals grown at great expense in space is quickly vanishing due to advances made on Earth. As mentioned in the earlier posts below, NASA dragged its feet on this and missed the bus.

Space Foundation Student Art Contest Winning Artwork Bounces Off the Moon

"The Space Foundation's annual Student Art Contest winners are developing a reputation for actual space travel. Digital versions of last year's winners are all permanently in residence on the International Space Station. Two of this year's winners have traveled an additional 277,000 miles to the Moon and back."

SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace Join Forces to Offer Crewed Missions to Private Space Stations

"Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Bigelow Aerospace (BA) have agreed to conduct a joint marketing effort focused on international customers. The two companies will offer rides on SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, using the Falcon launch vehicle to carry passengers to Bigelow habitats orbiting the earth."

Figueroa Rules Out Another NASA Mars Rover Before 2020, Space News

"Figueroa reiterated previous statements that his team will consider only missions that contribute in some way to an eventual Mars sample-return mission, which is the U.S. planetary science community's top priority for flagship-class Mars exploration endeavors."

Keith's note: This is a mindset ripe with old thinking. Even without the budget cuts, the costs for a Mars sample return mission have steadily increased over the decades that NASA has planned for it. NASA needs to head down a new path (or series of paths) wherein basic questions regarding the presence of current or previous life on Mars are addressed through more advanced and focused technologies - ones that can be used in situ. Instead, Figueroa et al are simply tied to old ways of thinking that make answering these questions move further into the future rather than making them move closer - all because the sample return mantra is etched into their brains from decades of repeating it among themselves.

It has been nearly 40 years since the twin Viking landers were sent to Mars. This is the last time NASA tried to do in situ testing for the presence of life on Mars. It is rather embarassing that NASA has not tried to do this again in the ensuing four decades or that it apparently won't try to do in the coming decade.

ATK Liberty Launch Vehicle Targets First Crewed Flight in 2015, Commercial Space Watch (With video)

"It was 15 months that ATK announced with Astrium (an EADS Company) announced that they were working together and would compete in NASA's Commercial Crew Development-2 (CCDev-2) procurement. At that time they announced an initial test flight by the end of 2013, a second test flight in 2014, and operational capability in 2015. Today's announcement reinforces the previous plans with a few changes and offers some new information."

'Made in Space': Coming soon to a product near you, Reuters

"Uhran notes that the timescale of a typical [Space station] research project is three to five years, which doesn't easily mesh with corporate priorities like reaching sales or profit targets for the next quarter, or even the next year."

Keith's note: So ... what do Mark Uhran and his colleagues do about this issue (by no means a new one)? They simply repeat it again and again as if it were an absolute, immutable fact of life at NASA and that there is nothing that NASA can (or will) do to change it. And then they wonder why there is not more interest in the commercial use of the ISS. Baffling. If the time lag is too long for commercial interests then obviously NASA needs to shorten it. Is CASIS the black box within which that miracle is supposed to happen? This commercially naive mindset at NASA is an ongoing example of the strange approach that Uhran et al took back in the 1990s with regard to finding users for the space station i.e. "build it and they will come". Yes they actually used that phrase. So did I when I worked there.

OK, Mark: you've built it - so where is everyone?

Keith's note: NASA FY 2013 Budget debate is now live on C-SPAN. Watch live.

Comments Made During House Debate on NASA FY 2013 Budget

"Mr. Rohrabacher: I rise today to engage in a colloquy on NASA's Commercial Crew program. The chairman has shown great leadership on space and science issues. He and I have often worked together on issues of shared interest, and he is a great friend. The report of this bill contains some strong language about NASA's Commercial Crew program, and I admittedly have some concerns about that language. I believe it makes a flawed comparison between commercial crew program partners and the energy firm Solyndra. In addition, it requires an immediate downselect to a single program partner, which I do not believe is the best path forward."

'Made in Space': Coming soon to a product near you, Reuters

"The European Space Agency is hatching plans for a branding campaign aimed at making people more aware of the benefits of spending their hard-earned taxes on the International Space Station. ..."It frustrates people, because we know we have a valuable asset," Mark Uhran, NASA's assistant associate administrator for the International Space Station, told Reuters at a conference in Berlin of scientists from the 15 nations backing the project."

Resignation Letter from CASIS Executive Director Jeanne L. Becker

"Unrealistic expectations have been levied collectively by Congressional staffers, by NASA (Mr. Uhran) and by ProOrbis."

Letter from CASIS to NASA: Response regarding Notification of Actions Following Dr. Becker's Resignation

"- website is in beta testing. Should be functional by mid-April."

Keith's note: And yet despite all of this gushing urgency about the potential of the ISS, Uhran et al can't even get their own website and the website run by CASIS to coordinate with one another or for either to be responsive to news - the very same news Uhran seems to think that people are desperate to read? The new CASIS website was supposed to be functional nearly a month ago. Then CASIS sends out a media advisory with 22 hours notice for a meeting (yesterday) with their scientific "team" (the "team" being comprised of 2 people - both consultants). Wow, what a big "team".

If NASA and CASIS don't take the ISS seriously to give it the manpower and visibility it deserves, then why should anyone else?

- NASA/CASIS Ignores NASA's Own ISS Research Announcements

Apollo Commanders Back Call For Quick Commercial Crew Selection, Aviation Week

"It seems unlikely that NASA will receive significant budgetary relief in the foreseeable future," the three retired astronauts wrote in a May 4 letter to Wolf. "Consequently, it is mandatory to maximize return on the limited funds available to access low Earth orbit. An early downselect would seem to be prudent in order to maximize the possibility of developing a crew-carrying spacecraft in time to be operationally useful."

NASA: Competition at core of commercial crew program, Spaceflight Now

"Ed Mango, manager of NASA's commercial crew program, said Tuesday a "downselect" to a sole company could double the cost of fielding a privately-built human transportation system. "We need competition as long as possible. The price to go with one [provider] starting today, and then all the way through certification and into services, is at least twice what it would be if you had competition at least as long as possible," Mango said."