TheSpaceGeneration.com

By comparison, the Republican Debate on NBC last night was a snoozer compared to the fireworks that took place in the South Carolina primary debates.  However, being in Florida, the space industry was brought up and Romney and Gingrich were given a chance to respond.  The segment begins around 1:10:16 in the video below.

We at The Space Generation want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. And to commemorate the occasion, here’s the Thanksgiving message from the International Space Station. God bless!

Judging from the announcement NASA sent out today, it sounds like an exciting time to be an astronaut!

The public is invited to watch the announcement of NASA’s process for selecting its next class of astronauts. The event starts at 1 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011, in the Webb auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA Television and the agency’s website will broadcast the event live. To view the event on NASA TV, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Assistant Administrator for Human Capital Jeri Buchholz, Flight Crew Operations Director Janet Kavandi and five members of the recently graduated 2009 astronaut class will participate in the announcement. They are Serena Aunon, Kjell Lindgren, Kathleen Rubins, Scott Tingle and Mark Vande Hei.

NASA will recruit its next astronaut class through the federal government’s USAJobs.gov website.

The class of 2009 was the first astronaut class to graduate in a new era of space flight following the final mission of the space shuttle. A new fleet of human spacecraft is in development by commercial companies to deliver crews to the International Space Station. NASA also is developing spacecraft to send humans on missions of exploration far away from our planet.

These new astronauts will advance research aboard the space station to benefit life on Earth and develop the knowledge and skills needed for longer flights to explore the solar system.

For more information about the Astronaut selection process, visit http://astronauts.nasa.gov/.

Additional information about the Astronaut Candidate Program is available by calling the Astronaut Selection Office at 281-483-5907.

For biographical information and other astronaut information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/astronauts.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

For more information about NASA’s next generation of spacecraft, visit http://www.nasa.gov/exploration.

As the shuttle era passes into history at Kennedy Space Center, a new chapter begins. Orbiter Processing Facility Bay 3 (formerly used for maintenance on the space shuttle) and Processing Control Center (control rooms and offices) at KSC will now be re-purposed for St. Louis-based The Boeing Company’s Commercial Crew program.  The announcement was made October 31, 2011 in Bay 3 which was dressed up with a mock-up of Boeing’s commercial crew vehicle, logos on wide-screen monitors, flags, and two podiums – one with the NASA logo, and one with the Boeing logo.  Behind it all was a silhouette of the space shuttle.  The theme of the announcement ceremony was that  American-made manned space flight (and the jobs that come with it) may be a reality in the next few years, but the linchpin of this potential success story is the US Congress.  Everything depends on the budget they allow NASA for the commercial crew program.

Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft “is a reusable capsule-shaped spacecraft based on proven materials and subsystem technologies that can transport up to seven people, or a combination of people and cargo. Boeing has designed the spacecraft to be compatible with a variety of expendable rockets and selected the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V launch vehicle for initial CST-100 test flights in 2015.”

photo credit: Boeing

John Mulholland of Boeing said “We selected Florida due to the cost benefits achieved with a consolidated operation, the skilled local workforce, and proximity to our NASA customer.” This is good news for some of the workers that found themselves jobless after the space shuttle was retired earlier this year – the Boeing facility at Kennedy will create 550 jobs, presuming Boeing receives continued contracts… and “sufficient NASA funding” according to Boeing’s press release, to reach full operations.

US Commercial Crew Transportation a “National Imperative”

Frank DiBello, President of Space Florida (an Independent Special District of the State of Florida tasked with promoting the space industry in the state), said it is a “national imperative” to develop commercial crew space transportation in the U.S, and called for full support of funding for the commercial crew program. He said, “Only the Congress can determine when we will stop the investment of our nation’s tax dollars into the purchase of continued pace transportation service from the Russians and invest instead to develop US workforce and commercial industry capabilities.” He referenced the vulnerability of the International Space Station program to “a single-point failure” (referring to the reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft which showed its first sign of weakness this year when its similar sister ship, the unmanned supply vessel Progress, crashed shortly after launch). He cited the goal of 2018 for NASA-led commercial crew transportation as “unacceptable” because it doesn’t allow for a good “return on investment” for tax dollars put into the ISS. Boeing’s Mulholland stated that their commercial crew vehicle would be ready by 2015.

John Elbon of Boeing spoke of the greatness but also the expense of the space shuttle. He said, “If we’re going to find a way to fund exploration beyond the vicinity of Earth, low-earth orbit, particularly in today’s fiscally constrained environment, we’ve got to find a way of transporting crew to the International Space Station in a more affordable manner.” The commercial crew program, as a less expensive program than the space shuttle, ought to free up funds for the development of the space launch system and the multi-purpose crew vehicle, which are designed with the goal of manned missions beyond low-earth orbit (i.e. to the Moon, an asteroid, and Mars). Elbon mentioned hopes of providing opportunities for Space Adventures (a company that brokers flights to space, currently aboard Soyuz vessels), as well as for Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing a type of inflatable, modular space station that could also serve as a module of a spacecraft such as a commercial crew vehicle. Boeing sees its CST-100 vehicle as an “enabler” for future space flight outside of low-earth orbit, by reducing the cost of continuing use of the ISS.

Congresswoman Sandy Adams (24th District Florida) said, “I watched with great sadness when the shuttle Atlantis landed last July, knowing that it marked the end of an era that so greatly defined our country and more specifically, Florida’s Space Coast… The Commercial Crew Development Program is the best near-term hope we have of getting American astronauts on American rockets built by American aerospace workforce to the International Space Station. The recent failure of a Russian cargo mission highlights the problems associated with relying on foreign countries to access the ISS. Even though scientists have pinpointed that error causing the Russian mission to crash, and the Soyuz has once again been qualified for flight, the failure still raises serious questions about consistent American access to a vital taxpayer investment.” Then she referenced the competition for world space leadership: “Countries like China and India realize the importance of having access to space, and they’re working toward a robust and highly skilled space industry. As they continue to chart their own course, America must continue to chart ours so that we maintain leadership in space.” Adams also called on congress to provide funding for the “next chapter of human space flight” and said “we must remain steadfast in our efforts.”

Rep. Bill Posey said this is one of our “greater days.” He brought out into the open the sentiment that everyone in the room must have been feeling: that “the Commercial Crew Program represents our greatest near-term hope for returning our astronauts to low-earth orbit and the International Space Station aboard American-made vehicles” (and he finished the remark with a little emphasis! see the video).  This brought a round of applause.

The Dream is Alive

As US Senator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut (mission specialist on Columbia with pilot Charlie Bolden) remarked, “Ladies and gentleman, the dream is alive.” He said that President Obama requested $850 million in fiscal year 2012 for the Commercial Crew Program, but the house has cut it to $312 million, and now the senate has gotten in up to $500 million. He said that in 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia was lost, it resulted in a mandate to only fly the shuttle until the space station was completed, and then replace it with a safer system. The new designs echo the designs of the Apollo era, where the vehicle is a capsule on top of the rocket, instead of having the crew on the side the rocket. “As a result we have in parallel the program to take crew and cargo to and from the space station with the competitors that we’re celebrating today and another that will launch in January, rendezvous and dock with the space station and deliver cargo. Now to get these systems human rated with the redundancies and the escape systems so that we can take human beings safely into safe. But in parallel we’ve got the big rocket going because NASA can’t stay stuck in low-earth orbit. NASA’s got to go out and explore the heavens, which is the mission of NASA.” Nelson highlighted the problem with the public’s perspective on NASA today: “Because of the shutdown of the space shuttle program, you go out on the street and ask the average American ‘what do you think about the space program’, and they’ll say I’m so sorry it’s being shut down. But folks, we’re just getting it cranked up. This rocket that we celebrate today, the others that will come, the big rocket that will take us into low-earth orbit where we can then assemble the components of technology that is yet to be developed as we venture out into the cosmos, and at the same time the return of the vibrance, this marks the beginning of the vibrance of the economy of the space coast, the return of new and exciting jobs, with vistas unknown to be explored so that we can get kids excited again and they’ll be going into to engineering and mathematics, and science.”

Speaking of the “template” of the unusual alliances of state and local organizations (as well as the commercial entities) making the deal with Boeing and others like them possible, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll said  “hopefully other states would not follow in our footsteps, because we want to really have it and do it the best for our country.” Now it remains to be seen if America will let Florida do it for them… with ongoing and sufficient funding for NASA’s Commercial Crew Vehicle Program.

Sources:

http://www.spaceflorida.gov/news/2011/10/31/boeing-to-establish-commercial-crew-program-office-in-florida
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1992

This past Tuesday, a ceremony was held at the California Science Center to officially transfer the title of the Space Shuttle Endeavour to the CSC. Endeavour, which is being prepared for it’s new existence as a museum piece, including removal of all the engines and anything hazardous, will be just a shell of its former self when it is put on display. But even if it’s not a functioning orbiter anymore, I’m sure California is glad to have one of the shuttles to display. At least they won’t be forgotten.

In the ceremony, four members of the crew of STS-134, including now-retired Commander Mark Kelly, pilot Greg Johnson, missions specialist Mike Fincke, and mission specialist Drew Feustel, made a special appearance and signed the title.

Judging from the YouTube video, they had kind of a cramped stage for all the many people they had come up, and there were dozens of signatures. Not quite like transferring the title when you sell your car.

I believe I remember Mark Kelly saying in an interview from the International Space Station, about Endeavour, that there was still “a lot of life in her.” It still seems like such a waste to have decommissioned our good spaceships, especially when they were the only means we had as a nation for taking Americans to orbit. The Soyuz will hopefully hold together long enough so the partner countries can keep the ISS in operation, but that is one expensive ride to space each time one of our astronauts goes up. The Orion may prove to be a great option for manned space flight, if the administration in power at the time allows it to be used for manned flight.

It is just surreal… the whole recent decline of NASA and our hopes for space travel, with occasional little bursts of hope that we may in fact get to Mars someday, but it’s such a far-out timeline that it still seems like science fiction.

Houston is Mission Control.  Houston is the place astronauts come home to.  And in Houston, Orion is being prepared to take Americans back to space.

This NASA TV video shows NASA Administrator Charles Bolden receiving a tour of parts of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.  The video has a few segments.  There is not much audio in the first part, but in the center section Bolden talks about how the Orion capsule will be used.  What I find most interesting is that it is still called “Orion,” one last link to the defunct Constellation program.

I thought for a moment there Charlie would climb right into the capsule. If I were NASA Administrator, I’d get in. Why not?  They said astronauts have been brought out to check out the visibility and reach-ability of things in the capsule, why not one more?

I want to get really excited about seeing the Orion and to know that there is a new space industry forming up around it in Houston. But it will be 2030 before we can go to Mars.  My 4th grade son will be 28 by then.  It seems so far off, but I suppose those 19 years will just fly by.

Where were you on September 11, 2001? I was far away, across the ocean in Rome, where we were on our honeymoon, looking forward the next day to meeting and receiving the blessing of Pope John Paul II. We felt so far from our loved ones, wondering what could be happening as we saw video of a plane flying into the World Trade Center on a TV set in a newsstand, wanting the news to be in English instead of dubbed over in Italian, confused, isolated. But that was nothing compared to how astronaut Frank Culbertson must have felt.

A picture taking from the International Space Station on September 11, 2001. (Credit: NASA)

Culbertson was on-board the International Space Station on September 11, 2001, as a member of Expedition 3, the only American not on the planet. He and his crewmates, Russian cosmonauts, took video footage of the Manhattan area from space. The video shows a huge plume of smoke stretching out miles from Ground Zero.

Space Shuttle Endeavour played a part in a later memorial to the victims of the September 11th attacks. Endeavour carried up small flags to space in honor of those who had died.

It is interesting that on the day that terrorists attacked the United States, the space program in this country was just getting started on its missions with the International Space Station. So many plans lay ahead. So many space shuttles and crews would launch carrying parts and modules and doing space walks to assemble the huge orbiting laboratory. Now ten years have gone by. One of the space shuttles and her crew, STS-107 and Space Shuttle Columbia, were lost February 1, 2003 during re-entry. Everything changed. President Bush ordered the retirement of the shuttle program and a new era for the space program in the Constellation program. President Obama cancelled the Constellation program. We all sense an unknown future of the space program that will involve commercial space companies, but it’s all very vague. The country, like so many of its citizens, is focused on financial troubles. We have suffered nationally since we were attacked by terrorists. Something in this country has slipped during these years. The space program makes it obvious how much we have changed.

On such an anniversary, you don’t just remember the victims of the September 11th attacks, as we have every year in September since 2001, but we also look back on a decade and see how things have changed from then to now. What about 2021? Let’s also look ahead to where we hope we will be as a country ten years from now. I hope that some of us will be looking at it from space.

According to NASA’s ISS on-orbit status report today,  one of the tasks cosmonaut Sergei completed was: “Inspecting the recently activated Russian BIO-5 Rasteniya-2 (“Plants-2″) payload with its LADA-01 greenhouse and verifying proper watering of the root modules, [Rasteniya-2 researches growth and development of plants (currently wheat) under spaceflight conditions in the LADA greenhouse from IBMP (Institute of Bio-Medical Problems, Russian: IMBP)].”

I will try to pay more attention to what is alive and growing on the ISS, and how progress goes on the Lada experiments.

Earlier (May) this was reported:

“Padalka performed the frequent status check on the Russian BIO-5 Rasteniya-2 (“Plants-2″) experiment, verifying proper operation of the BU Control Unit and MIS-LADA Module fans (testing their air flow by hand) plus today, as a discretionary task list item, monitoring seedling growth, humidity measurements, moistening of the substrate if necessary and topping off the water tank if ~20-25% of the total amount (4 liters) remains. [Rasteniya-2 researches growth and development of plants under spaceflight conditions in the LADA-15 greenhouse from IBMP (Institute of Bio-Medical Problems, Russian: IMBP).]”

It is certainly a hands-on experiment, no robotic plant growing is this Lada.  This is probably fun and therapeutic for the astronauts, but not a good long-term solution for manned deep-space missions and colonization.

Soil in Endeavour crater photographed by the Mars Opportunity rover (credit: Nasa)

Mars soil was once thought to be acidic and oxidizing (stripping away electrons from molecules), in part because Mars Viking landers in the 1970s apparently observed organic compounds decompose when mixed with water (brought from earth) and Martian soil.  But Mars Phoenix (launched in August 2007) has found that the soil pH is 7.7, according to a FoxNews article, and while it did identify percolate, an oxidizing compound, the levels were “comparable to earth soils”.

This is good news for the potential that life has existed (could still exist?) on Mars.  But it is also a plus for growing plants in Martian soil.   Even on earth, soil needs to be amended, but with good organic gardening practices (like enriching the soil with beneficial-bacteria-active compost – compost being a great way to recycle vegetable and fruit waste from a Mars colony), a sustainable garden could provide ongoing fresh food to humans settling Mars.  Assuming you can control the moisture, light, temperature, and gasses in the plants’ environment as well, a soil pH of 7.7 could be brought down in a small area to fall within the 5.5-6.5 pH range, which vegetable plants love.  Root crops (carrots, turnips, beets), which thrive at about 6.8 pH, wouldn’t take much to be made happy.  The same is true of vine crops (cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, squash).

The composition of the Martian regolith –a term used for the “topsoil” on worlds other than earth – without containing organic matter it is not really considered “soil”– includes magnesium, sodium, potassium, and chloride, minerals important to life.  Suspended dust in the atmosphere gives it a reddish hue… this dust contains iron which has oxidized.  There is an article on Wikipedia which goes into greater depth on the Martian regolith, with a good deal of discussion about dust.  Sounds like Mars is pretty dusty due to the high winds, fine dust and thin atmosphere.

A 2003 photograph of one of the growing experiments aboard the ISS. The Lada plant growth experiments are ongoing. (credit: NASA)

Speaking of growing food in space… it is good to know that SpaceGen is not the only one thinking about the need to grow fresh food on a Mars colony! Today FoxNews.com published information from an interview with NASA Johnson Space Center’s Maya R. Cooper of the Space Food Systems Laboratory on this topic. According to the article, on the top 10 list of vegetables to be grown in space are “lettuce, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, spring onions, radishes, peppers, strawberries, herbs and cabbage.”

I find this to be an interesting combination of cold-weather crops (lettuce, spinach, and cabbage for instance) and hot-loving plants (tomatoes, peppers, strawberries). Herbs and leafy greens are quick-growing crops that keep growing more food as you harvest some leaves from them. I assume they will be growing them hydroponically under lights. (Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/29/first-mars-astronauts-may-have-to-grow-own-food/#ixzz1WTMnRzMZ).

NASA mentions this on their website too:

Space travelers living on Mars for extended periods will need to grow plants, which provide food and generate oxygen. But the decreased gravity and low atmospheric pressure environment will stress the plants and make them hard to grow.

Greenhouses in the Station’s Destiny Laboratory and in the Zvezda Service Module grow plants in a controlled environment. Station crews tend the plants, photograph them and harvest samples for return to Earth. Researchers can use the resulting data to develop new techniques for successfully growing plants in space.( from http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/)

Iranian private space program participant Anousheh Ansari holds the Lada unit which is growing barley.

NASA (and their partners in space exploration)’s ongoing research on growing vegetables in space can be found on NASA’s website at Validating Vegetable Production Unit (VPU) Plants, Protocols, Procedures and Requirements (P3R) Using Currently Existing Flight Resources (Lada-VPU-P3R).  This page explains how they continue to use the Lada unit which is still on-board the ISS (it was launched in September 2002 aboard a Soyuz rocket).  The Lada is seen in those NASA Imax movies whenever you see an astronaut working on a piece of equipment with green stuff growing out of it.  It is “a wall-mounted growth chamber that provides long-term, ready access for crewmember interaction. It provides light and root zone control but relies on the cabin environmental control systems for humidity, gas composition, and temperature control. Cabin air is pulled into the leaf chamber, flows over the plants and vents through the light bank to provide both plant gas exchange and light bank cooling.”

LED grow lights are used for the Lada experiments.

For some more information about the ongoing research concerning growing vegetables in space, you can visit the website of Space Dynamics Laboratory (Utah Stat University Research Foundation), the company that collaborated with the Russian Space Agency in designing and building the Lada unit.  You can even order a MicroLada kit from them (used for educational purposes) for $110 which includes the light, substrate, pea seeds and the MicroLada case, so your kids can grow plants just like they do aboard the International Space Station.

I hope the astronauts will not have to abandon the ISS because of the Russians’ rocket problems.  If they do, undoubtedly the vegetable-growing experiments will have to be shut down, and who knows if they will ever be started up again.  So far, though, the plan is to keep moving forward… at least, they say the manned Mars mission will happen in 2030.  So much can change in nineteen years though.  When they do go, I have a feeling they will be growing their own vegetables on the way to Mars, and on the planet when they get there.  In the meantime, we’ll continue our own vegetable growing experiments at home.