Interplanetary travel cost studied

Two leading U.S. research organizations are launching a year-long to study to examine the financing of interplanetary travel.

The 100-Year Starship study, undertaken by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the NASA Ames Research Center, is looking at the business model needed to pay for the technology which could make long-distance manned space flight possible a century from now, DARPA said.

The project has attracted widespread attention after the director of NASA's Ames Research Center, Simon (Pete) Worden, revealed it at an event in San Francisco on Oct. 16, media reports said.

"The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds," Worden reportedly said.

Worden's comments prompted speculation that trips to Mars could be only 20 years away. Commentators talked about the difficulties of such a trip because of the cost, estimated at $10 billion US one-way, and the likelihood that the explorers would not be able to ever return to Earth.

However, the actual study has very little money, funded with $1 million from DARPA and $100,000 from NASA, Worden said. NASA's budget this year was over $18 billion, and a $100-million project is small in its books.

NASA - Video of Moonwalk From 1969 Restored

uNASA on Thursday unveiled refurbished video of the 1st human landing on the moon, restored after it became clear that the original tapes of the July 20, 1969, moonwalk had been erased and reused.

NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's landing. Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, found where the footage went: It was in a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed -- magnetically erased -- and reused to save money.

So NASA took television video copies of what Apollo 11 beamed to Earth 40 years ago to a Hollywood film-restoration company, which made the pictures look sharper.

NASA emphasized that the video is not "new" -- just better-quality.

"There iss nothing being created; there is nothing being manufactured," said Nafzger, who is in charge of the project.

The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank, Calif.-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September. The preview is online at washingtonpost.com.

-- From News Services

Endeavour Undergoes In-Flight Inspection: The space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts inspected their ship as engineers on Earth pored over launch pictures that showed debris breaking off the fuel tank and striking the craft. The slow, tedious work unfolded as the shuttle rocketed toward the international space station for a Friday linkup. It'll take days to sort through available data to reach a conclusion about how much damage the shuttle sustained.

-- Associated Press

Conviction for Theft Of Space Secrets
A Chinese-born engineer was convicted of stealing trade secrets critical to the U.S. space program.

In the nation's first economic espionage trial, a federal judge found former Boeing engineer Dongfan "Greg" Chung guilty of 6 counts of economic espionage and other charges for hoarding 300,000 pages of sensitive documents in his home, including information about the U.S. space shuttle and a booster rocket.

Federal prosecutors accused the 73-year-old stress analyst of using his 30-year career at Boeing and Rockwell International to steal the documents. Prosecutors said they discovered Chung's activities while investigating another suspected Chinese spy, Chi Mak. Mak was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China and sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

Defense attorneys said that their client did not break any laws and that the U.S. government could not prove he had given any of the information to China.
Chung is set to be sentenced Nov. 9. Federal prosecutor Ivy Wang said Chung could face a maximum sentence of more than 90 years in prison.

-- Associated Press

Forty years ago the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission lifted off for the moon. Katie Couric reports on the newly enhanced video of their historic journey.

Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071604352_2.html

Launch to Moon - America in Space -June 2009

America in Space-by Kenneth Renshaw, NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, Piggott, Arkansas

June 2009

This month's America in Space will see our nation returning to the Moon after many years of waiting, as well as a postponement of the shuttle launch of Endeavour.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), with the accompanying LCROSS, was launched on June 18, and arrived at the Moon on June 23. In October, an upper rocket stage, about the size of a small bus, will smash into the Moon near its pole (location to yet be determined). The plume from the collision should let scientists know if there is water ice in the permanently shadowed areas within craters at the Moon's poles, providing a valuable resource for drinking, breathing, and fuel for a future manned Moon base. The LCROSS will fly through the plume, chemically analyzing it for water, then, 4 minutes later, also crash into the Moon. The plume from both collisions will be visible in Earth's telescopes, providing further information. The LRO orbiter will continue to orbit the Moon, mapping it in unprecedented detail, providing safe landing areas for future probes. The next generation of manned spacecraft, the Ares I, with its Orion capsule, along with the unmanned Ares V with a lander and cargo attached, will replace the Shuttle in about 2013, with plans for a manned presence on the Moon in about 2020. It'll be the first time man has landed on the moon since the Apollo program in 1969-1972. Speaking of Apollo, this July 20 will be the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969, as well as the 33rd anniversary of Viking I, the first unmanned landing on Mars.

On May 24, the crew of STS-125 landed the Atlantis shuttle, after one of the most spectacular flights in history. Despite conducting some of the most difficult spacewalks of all time, technical problems, and repairs planned that the Hubble was not designed for, the astronauts of STS-125 repaired and upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope for at least 5 more years of research, far beyond the capabilities of the past use of the Hubble or any telescope ever invented. Due to the weather, Atlantis landed in California, causing the need to use a modified 747 jet to return the shuttle to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The next shuttle, STS-127, the Endeavour, was delayed from a June launch to July 11, 2009, due to a hydrogen leak problem. The position of the Sun caused the delay to July. STS-127 will dock with the International Space Station, and complete the JAXA (Japanese Space Agency) module of the station, the KIBO laboratory. The space station (ISS) was upgraded last year so that 6, rather than 3, astronauts regularly occupy it for about 6 months at a time. The ISS is an international cooperation of several nations, including the U.S., Russia, ESA (European Space Agency), and JAXA. When STS-127 docks with the ISS in July, 2 records will occur: 1. 13 people will be in space at once, more than ever in history, and 2. U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy, age 39, will become the 500th human (from any country) to fly in space.

In other space news, Cassini is doing well on a 2-year extended mission, exploring Saturn, its rings, and its moons. Messenger is doing well, on its way to a March 18, 2011 encounter with Mercury, the first spacecraft to orbit the tiny, hot planet. The 2011 Mars Science Laboratory rover has been named "Curiosity", in a contest won by Clara Ma, age 12, of Kansas. To be a part of space history, and put your name on a micro-chip on this rover that will be flown to Mars, go to http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/index.htmlDue to these public participation programs, my name is currently on its way to the Moon (on LRO/LCROSS), Pluto (on New Horizons), is on Mars (Phoenix lander), and was smashed into a comet (on Deep Impact).

Speaking of naming contests, a bit of trivia: Pluto, the former 9th planet now considered a dwarf planet, discovered February 18, 1930, was named by a then 11-year-old British girl, Venetia Burney, who passed away this Spring.

source: http://www.piggotttimes.com/blogs/1233/entry/28234/