NASA reports a X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun recently, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 10 AM PST. It erupted from a part of the sun known as Active Region 1520, which rotated into view on July 6.

Heres the image released by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

An X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM EDT. (NASA image)

If you think that looks pretty big, youre right. The flare has been classified as strong, meaning theres the potential for technological interference here on Earth mostly related to radio interruption and navigation malfunction.

The flight center reports there was a coronal mass ejection occurred simultaneously. These strong solar winds are associated with the aurora effect here on Earth, meaning we could be in for some pretty sights. Take a look at the aurora pictures in this gallery and see if you think if its worth the risk of electronic interruption.

A look at recent sunspots, ejections and flares.

An X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM EDT. It erupted from Active Region 1520 which rotated into view on July 6.

An active region spurted off at least half a dozen solar flares and numerous other small bursts of plasma over about 36 hours (Apr. 29 - May 1, 2012). The bright active region, viewed in extreme ultraviolet light by Solar Dynamics Observatory, must have had a tangled magnetic field for it to erupt so frequently. None of the flares were major, but they made for a nifty movie. (NASA/SDO)

The sunspot region AR 1429 that generated several major solar storms recently. The spot is almost always changing as its magnetic fields realign themselves. (NASA)

A large sunspot region (AR1429) unleashed an X5 class flare (the second largest of this solar cycle) and a smaller one (X1) late on March 6, 2012, seen in extreme ultraviolet light by the SDO spacecraft. The bright flare (with several smaller flashes) was followed by a large coronal mass ejection that smacked Earth with a moderately strong geomagnetic storm two days later. (NASA)

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NASA solar flare photo: The sun burped

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - John Allmen of Gilroy, Calif., a senior project manager at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., recently was honored by NASA's Space Flight Awareness Program for his outstanding support of human space flight.

Allmen was honored for his exceptional leadership while serving as manager of NASA Ames' Shuttle Operations Program from 2005-2011. This program provided direct and on-call support for space shuttle operations beginning with the shuttle's return to flight. His creative application of Ames' technical expertise and use of center facilities to gain access to vital shuttle information allowed NASA to obtain a more detailed understanding of mission risks and be better prepared to make mission go/no-go decisions.

"Supporting the Space Shuttle Program and working with some of the most talented people at NASA has been the pinnacle of my career," said Allmen. "Helping to ensure the safe launch and return of the space shuttles and our brave astronauts over the last six years would have been impossible without the focus and commitment of our dedicated team at Ames."

In recognition of such flight program contributions, Allmen traveled to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a tour of the center and to participate in activities in conjunction with the July 2, 2012 arrival of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. Orion's delivery to Kennedy marks a critical milestone in preparation for its first test flight, scheduled for 2014.

The Honoree Award is one of the highest honors presented to civil service and contract employees and recognizes their dedication to outstanding job performance and contributions to the excellence in quality and safety in support of human space flight. Recipients must contribute beyond their normal work requirements toward achieving a particular human space flight program goal or a major cost savings; been instrumental in developing material that increases reliability, efficiency or performance; assisted in operational improvements; or been a key player in developing a beneficial process improvement.

Established in 1939 as the second laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Ames became NASA's Ames Research Center with the formation of NASA in 1958. Due, among other things, to its origins as an aeronautics center, Ames has played a major role in the development of the space shuttle since the program's inception in the spring of 1969. Ames built the largest arc jet complex in the world to test, in near-realistic re-entry conditions, large samples of many generations of shuttle tiles and blankets and more than half all preflight tests of the shuttle, totaling more than 35,000 hours, were conducted in Ames' wind tunnels. Shuttle cockpit designs and flight procedures were refined at a unique set of flight simulators built at NASA Ames while, in the Flight Simulator for Advanced Aircraft, Ames human factor specialists developed the shuttle orbiter display technology. Over the 30 years of the shuttle program, every shuttle pilot has practiced approaches and landings in the Ames Vertical Motion Simulator.

For information about NASA's Ames Research Center, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ames

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NASA Space Flight Awareness Program Honors Ames' Shuttle Operations Manager

NASA’s Earth Observatory has posted before and after satellite images of the mid-Atlantic region showing the extent of the power outages after the June 29th storm. The land hurricane – technically called a “derecho”, or “long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms” – left over 4 million people without power for several days. The images are from ...

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NASA satellites show extent of power outages after the "derecho"

Sit throughNASA'sdramatic "Seven Minutes of Terror" video, about the upcoming landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, and you might come away certain of one thing: It's not going to work.

No way. No how.

With the new video, NASA has stirred up interest in its $2.5-billion Mars mission, which aims to determine whether conditions existed at any time to support microbial life on the Red Planet.But "Terror," with its thrumming soundtrack and movie-preview aura, could inspire serious doubts in viewers about the advisability of the project.

SPACE IMAGES: Mickey on Mercury and more

But look beyond this little infusion of Hollywood at NASA and you'll find that scientists at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory aren't shaking in their boots. JPL manages the Mars rover projects for NASA.

"Are we terrified? I think we're confident in what we've designed," scientist Ashwin R. Vasavada said in an interview Wednesday morning with the Los Angeles Times. "But we're all human. Everything we've worked for -- the scientific discoveries, the proven engineering, the contributions we make toward future NASA missions -- it all lies on the other side of those seven minutes."

There are four main segments to the landing, according to Vasavada, deputy project scientist with the Mars Science Laboratory at JPL.Here, very briefly, is what should happen in the seven minutes it takes for the craft to descend from the atmosphere of Mars and for the rover to land on the surface of the planet:

1) Entry: The heat shield withstands the initial heat (1,600 degrees Fahrenheit) of entering Mars' atmosphere and slows the spacecraft from its speed of 13,000 miles per hour.

2) Opening of the supersonic parachute: Several miles above the surface of the planet, the parachute pops open while the craft is still traveling at Mach 1.7, almost twice the speed of sound. "Even though we've taken off 99% of the speed with the heat shield, we're still going really fast," Vasavada said. Then the heat shield pops off.

3) Rover exit: About a mile above the surface, Curiosity pops out of the shell attached to the parachute, with eight rockets firing, further slowing its descent.

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Terrified? NASA has reason to be when it comes to Mars landing

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 16, to discuss the upcoming August landing of the most advanced robot ever sent to another world. A new public-engagement collaboration based on the mission also will be debuted.

The event for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website. To view a JPL live stream with a moderated chat, visit: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .

Mars Science Laboratory will deliver the Curiosity rover to the surface of Mars at approximately 10:31 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 (1:31 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6). Curiosity, carrying laboratory instruments to analyze samples of rocks, soil and atmosphere, will investigate whether Mars has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

Participants will be:

-- Doug McCuistion, director, Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters -- Michael Meyer, lead scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters -- John Grotzinger, MSL project scientist, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. -- Pete Theisinger, MSL project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena -- Jeff Norris, manager, planning and execution systems, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Local reporters are invited to watch the news conference via satellite, with two-way question- and-answer capability, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Reporters who would like to come to JPL must arrange access by contacting the JPL Media Relations Office by 3 p.m. PST on Friday, July 13, at 818-354-5011. In addition, valid media credentials are required, and non-U.S. citizens must also bring a passport.

Media representatives may also ask questions from other participating NASA centers or by telephone. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Steve Cole at 202-358-0918 or stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov by 7 a.m. PDT (10 a.m. EDT) on July 16.

For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the mission, and to view or submit events surrounding the landing, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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NASA News Conference to Preview August Mars Rover Landing

Image: Scott Brundage

Last year, after a lengthy, circuitous journey through the solar system, a NASA probe known as MESSENGER entered into orbit around Mercury. No spacecraft had visited the innermost planet in more than three decades, and none has paid an extended visit. With MESSENGER's arrival, NASA and its international counterparts now have spacecraft stationed at Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturnnot to mention Earth and the moon. Two more NASA craft are en route to Jupiter and Pluto; yet another ought to reach the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. Humankind's presence has never stretched so far.

It could stretch farther still, with robots spying down on bizarre moons that might harbor alien life or on the little-understood outermost planets. An even more novel campaign would ferry Martian rocks back to Earth for analysis. NASA had been on track to begin such an ambitious project, but alas, political maneuvering recently forced the space agency to scrap its plans.

The president's proposed budget for 2013 includes drastic cutbacks to planetary science of more than 20 percent that could derail many future missions. Such erratic handling of NASA threatens the nation's steady progress of solar system exploration, which is hypersensitive to the vicissitudes of budget politics.

Sending robotic missions out into the solar system requires years of preparation. Interplanetary probes depend on cutting-edge technologies that are developed and tested over time. And flight plans often demand a well-timed launch during a brief planetary alignment. Nurturing these complex missions calls for patience and a steady hand. That is why a group of planetary scientists draws up a blueprint for exploration every 10 years or so under the auspices of the National Research Council. This advisory panel issued its most recent report last year, which prioritizes the missions and objectives that will yield the most science per dollar. Shaking up the planetary science division now, for a relatively meager savings of $300 million, would force NASA away from these sensible, well-defined goals.

The most severe cuts were to Mars exploration, long a U.S. specialty. NASA was to begin the process of returning samples from the Red Planet during a joint 2018 mission with the European Space Agency (ESA). That campaign, perhaps the most important flagship project this decade, appears to be dead. With the release of the president's budget request, NASA had to concede that it would withdraw from the 2018 Mars mission, as well as from a 2016 launch, also in collaboration with ESA, of an orbiter that would have sought out the origins of trace gases in the Martian atmosphere. Both missions would have made significant progress toward answering the question of whether Mars was ever habitable.

The budgetary ax also threatens to push other top targets for exploration further into the distance. Foremost among them is Jupiter's moon Europa, which scientists suspect holds an internal ocean that could harbor life. The ice giants Uranus and Neptune have only been investigated in fleeting flybys. These worlds will remain unsolved puzzles without a reversal of regressive policies.

In a fraught fiscal climate, NASA should focus on what it does best and on what offers the best return on investment. Solar system exploration meets both criteria: the U.S. has long led the interplanetary charge, and the resulting scientific benefits have come at a relative bargain. This year NASA's planetary science program cost about $1.5 billionless than what NASA spent designing a congressionally mandated rocket, the Space Launch System, which appears more likely to satisfy aerospace contractors than to aid the cause of space exploration. Such directives from lawmakers all too often land in NASA's lap without the funds to carry them out.

A mere fraction of a cent from every tax dollar seems a small price to pay for the extension of humanity's robotic reach to distant worldsone of our greatest accomplishments as a nation, not to mention as a technological species. If planetary science must suffer, the reduction should be phased in gradually so that scientists can try to soften the disruption to long-term plans.

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NASA's Planetary Science Program Endangered by Budget Cuts

A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto.

The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.

"The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said team lead Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

The discovery increases the number of known moons orbiting Pluto to five.

The Pluto team is intrigued that such a small planet can have such a complex collection of satellites. The new discovery provides additional clues for unraveling how the Pluto system formed and evolved. The favored theory is that all the moons are relics of a collision between Pluto and another large Kuiper belt object billions of years ago.

The new detection will help scientists navigate NASA's New Horizons spacecraft through the Pluto system in 2015, when it makes an historic and long-awaited high-speed flyby of the distant world. The team is using Hubble's powerful vision to scour the Pluto system to uncover potential hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft. Moving past the dwarf planet at a speed of 30,000 miles per hour, New Horizons could be destroyed in a collision with even a BB-shot-size piece of orbital debris.

"The discovery of so many small moons indirectly tells us that there must be lots of small particles lurking unseen in the Pluto system," said Harold Weaver of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

"The inventory of the Pluto system we're taking now with Hubble will help the New Horizons team design a safer trajectory for the spacecraft," added Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., the mission's principal investigator.

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978 in observations made at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Hubble observations in 2006 uncovered two additional small moons, Nix and Hydra. In 2011 another moon, P4, was found in Hubble data.

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NASA Hubble Discovers Fifth Moon of Pluto

LOUISVILLE, Colo. -- NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has completed a successful test of the nose landing gear for its full-scale Dream Chaser engineering flight test vehicle. The completed test and an upcoming flight test are part of SNC's Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

The gear test is an important milestone to prepare for the upcoming approach and landing test of the Dream Chaser Space System later this year. It evaluated the impact the nose landing gear will experience on touchdown in order to ensure a safe runway landing.

SNC is one of seven companies developing commercial crew transportation capabilities to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser is the only spacecraft under CCDev2 that is winged and designed to land on a conventional runway. It is designed to carry as many as seven astronauts to space.

"The landing gear system must perform flawlessly, just like the space shuttle orbiter's did, for the safe return of the crew," CCP program manager Ed Mango said. "It's great to see that SNC is building on that experience while developing the Dream Chaser spacecraft."

SNC tested the spacecraft's main landing gear in February. This nose landing gear test completes the milestones leading up to the upcoming approach and landing test, which will complete the CCDev2 partnership.

"This test marks a significant point in the development of the Dream Chaser orbital crew vehicle. As the last milestone before free flight of the Dream Chaser spacecraft, we are now preparing for the approach and landing tests to be flown later this year," said Jim Voss, SNC vice president of space exploration systems and program manager for the Dream Chaser.

All of NASA's industry partners, including SNC, continue to meet their established milestones in developing commercial crew transportation capabilities under CCDev2.

For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program and CCDev2, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

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NASA's Commercial Crew Partner Sierra Nevada Completes Dream Chaser Nose Landing Gear Test

NASA's New Horizons Mission at Pluto

An artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it visits Pluto in 2015. Instruments will map Pluto and its moons, providing detail not only on the surface of the dwarf planet, but also about its shape, which could reveal whether or not an ocean lies beneath the ice.

This artist's rendering depicts the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its moons in summer 2015.

An overhead view of the New Horizons spacecraft's path across Uranus' orbit.

New Horizons has undergone extensive testing at NASAs Goddard Space Flight center and arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This montage of New Horizons images shows Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io, and were taken during the spacecraft's Jupiter flyby in early 2007.

NASA's New Horizons snapped this view of Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io in early January 2007.

KBO: Artist's impression of the New Horizons spacecraft meeting up with a Kuiper Belt object. The Sun is more than 4.1 billion miles (6.7 billion kilometers) away. Jupiter and Neptune are visible as orange and blue stars to the right of the Sun. Though KBOs would not be so visible at any one moment, they're shown here to illustrate the extensive disk of icy worlds beyond Neptune.

To be dispatched early 2006, the outward bound New Horizons spacecraft will throw new light on distant Pluto and its moon, Charon, as well as Kuiper Belt objects. Image

This amazing color portrait of Jupiters Little Red Spot (LRS) combines high-resolution images from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken at 03:12 UT on February 27, 2007, with color images taken nearly simultaneously by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Destination Pluto: NASA's New Horizons Mission in Pictures

FARNBOROUGH, England (AP) So far, the scorecard for missions to Mars reads attempts 40, successes 14.

Not so good.

Well over 60 percent of Earth missions to Mars have failed, ever since the pioneering efforts of the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and including Britain's high-profile Beagle 2 space probe.

As NASA's latest mission to Mars heads closer to the Red Planet, the head of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Doug McCuistion, acknowledged Tuesday that many things could still go wrong before its scheduled Aug. 6 landing date.

The one thing that worries him most is if the spacecraft's heat shield will detach as planned when the U.S. Mars Science Laboratory mission sets down a large, mobile laboratory on Mars the rover Curiosity.

"If you look at the scorecard, Earth is doing less than 50 percent; less than 50 percent of Earth's missions to Mars have been successful," McCuistion, a former U.S. fighter pilot, said at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.

In the seven minutes before its planned touchdown, the U.S. spacecraft has a number of tasks it has to complete for Curiosity to make a safe landing. First it must get rid of the heat shield and avoid a subsequent collision with it. Then it has to slow its descent to the Red Planet with the aid of a massive parachute as well as use rockets mounted around the rim of an upper stage. In the final seconds, the upper stage of the spacecraft acts as a sky crane, lowering the upright rover on a tether to the surface.

In spite of the challenges, McCuistion remains positive that the $2.5 billion mission will be a success and praises the unprecedented international cooperation between NASA and companies like German electronics company Siemens AG.

After all, NASA, the world's biggest space agency, enjoyed success with its twin Mars Exploration Rovers in the mid-2000s.

"I can't really give you a hard number .... but I think we are in a medium-to-low risk environment," McCuistion said.

Continued here:

NASA's Mars chief frets over heat shield for probe

For NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to arrive undamaged on the surface of the Red Planet, a lot of things will have to go right.

So far, the scorecard for missions toMarsreads attempts 40, successes 14.

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Not so good.

Well over 60 percent of Earth missions toMarshave failed, ever since the pioneering efforts of the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and including Britain's high-profile Beagle 2 space probe.

As NASA's latest mission toMarsheads closer to the Red Planet, the head of NASA'sMarsExploration Program, Doug McCuistion, acknowledged Tuesday that many things could still go wrong before its scheduled Aug. 6 landing date.

The one thing that worries him most is if the spacecraft's heat shield will detach as planned when the U.S.MarsScience Laboratory mission sets down a large, mobile laboratory onMars the roverCuriosity.

"If you look at the scorecard, Earth is doing less than 50 percent; less than 50 percent of Earth's missions toMarshave been successful," McCuistion, a former U.S. fighter pilot, said at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.

In the seven minutes before its planned touchdown, the U.S. spacecraft has a number of tasks it has to complete forCuriosity to make a safe landing. First it must get rid of the heat shield and avoid a subsequent collision with it. Then it has to slow its descent to the Red Planet with the aid of a massive parachute as well as use rockets mounted around the rim of an upper stage. In the final seconds, the upper stage of the spacecraft acts as a sky crane, lowering the upright rover on a tether to the surface.

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Will NASA's Mars rover crash?

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‘Seven Minutes of Terror’ Video Grabs Online Audience for NASA

LONGUEUIL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire -07/10/12)- At the invitation of NASA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) begins a joint nine-day field test today in a volcanic area near Hilo, Hawaii, to test technologies and concepts for lunar exploration.

Dubbed RESOLVE (short for "Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction,") the project will demonstrate how future explorers could extract water and other useful resources from the lunar soil at potential polar landing sites. Terrestrial field work, like the RESOLVE mission, allows scientific and technical teams to test exploration concepts in a cost-efficient manner to reduce the risks in designing future missions.

The CSA is contributing the following Canadian-built equipment to the NASA RESOLVE field mission:

The RESOLVE field work will be conducted in an environment similar to the Moon. In fact, the lava-covered mountain's soil and dust is quite similar to that in the ancient volcanic plains on the Moon. The Canadian rover's small size, versatile tools and robust equipment make RESOLVE suitable for any kind of investigation work, whether exploring the Moon or digging into Martian soil.

Work done here on Earth through missions like RESOLVE helps prepare the international space community for its eventual next steps in space exploration. In the future, unmanned missions will set out to explore areas humans have never visited. Robotic explorers will analyze and transform matter samples, for instance to confirm the existence of frozen water in the polar regions.

NASA is hosting a media day on July 19 at 9 a.m. HST. Reporters should contact Amber Philman at 321-431-4970 (amber.n.philman@nasa.gov) by Tuesday, July 17, to attend. Access to the test site requires an escort and a letter of assignment on company letterhead for credentials.

The Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES, at the University of Hawaii, Hilo, also hosts the collaborative mission.

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The Canadian Space Agency and NASA Test Lunar Technologies

10-07-2012 07:52 Nasa combines 817 images taken during the winter by its rover, Opportunity, to create a panoramic view of the red planet.

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Panoramic view of Mars released by Nasa - Video

Synopsis - Jul 09, 2012

General Information

Solicitation Number: TTO1014 Posted Date: Jul 09, 2012 FedBizOpps Posted Date: Jul 09, 2012 Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No Original Response Date: Dec 31, 2012 Current Response Date: Dec 31, 2012 Classification Code: 99 -- Miscellaneous NAICS Code: 927110 Set-Aside Code:

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 12, Industry Assistance Office, Hampton, VA 23681-0001

Description

NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA solicits interest from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis and may include specific fields of use.

THE TECHNOLOGY:

NASA Langley's chemists have synthesized a class of novel diamines for epoxy resins that possess both aromatic and aliphatic characteristics. These molecules have been shown useful in two unrelated areas. First, the diamines have been demonstrated to aid in the dispersion of carbon nanotubes into polymer matrices. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) have countless applications, but their utilization has been somewhat impeded due to their inability to interface with polymers and due to the bundling of the tubes. The diamine molecules enable SWNT to be dispersed in a polymer and inhibit nanotubes bundling. Secondly, composite materials containing the diamines possess the ability to provide both structural and radiation-shielding functions. Because the diamines are both aliphatic and aromatic, they are endowed with the dual properties of high hydrogen content and high strength, which are particularly well suited to neutron radiation-shielding applications.

To express interest in this opportunity, please respond to Sean Sullivan, Research Triangle International (RTI), at: NASA Langley Research Center, Strategic Relationships Office (SRSO), 17 West Taylor St., Mail Stop 218, Building 1212, Room 110 Hampton, Virginia, E-mail: Sean.D.Sullivan@NASA.gov, or phone: 757-864-5055. Please indicate the date and title of the FBO notice and include your company and contact information.

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NASA Technology Transfer Opportunity: Novel Aromatic and Aliphatic Diamines for Advanced Polymer Applications

Mark Wilson / Getty Images file

"Arsenic life" researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon is flanked by Mary Voytek, director of NASA's Astrobiology Program, as well as chemist Steven Benner and astrobiologist Pamela Conrad during a NASA news conference on Dec. 2, 2010. Many of the claims made during that briefing have now been refuted in peer-reviewed research.

By Alan Boyle

Nineteen months ago, NASA's experts on astrobiology hailed the initial report about arsenic-eating microbes as a "huge deal," but with the publication of two peer-reviewed papers that have refuted that report, the space agency now says the picture is "as yet incomplete."

The statement from Michael H. New, astrobiology discipline scientist at NASA Headquarters' Planetary Science Division, runs counter to the instant reaction that the "arsenic-life" controversy is finished. Since Sunday's online release of the two papers by the journal Science, a lot of folks have been talking about FAILs and nails (as in last nails in the coffin).

New took a different tack:

"NASA supports robust and continuous peer review of any scientific finding, especially discoveries with wide-ranging implications. It was expected that the 2010 Wolfe-Simon et al. Sciencepaper would not be exempt from such standard scientific practices, and in fact, was anticipated to generate significant scientific attention given the surprising results in that paper. The two new papers published in Scienceon the microorganism GFAJ-1 exemplify this process and provide important new insights. Though these new papers challenge some of the conclusions of the original paper, neither paper invalidates the 2010 observations of a remarkable microorganism that can survive in a highly phosphate-poor and arsenic-rich environment toxic to many other microorganisms. What has emerged from these three papers is an as yet incomplete picture of GFAJ-1 that clearly calls for additional research."

University of British Columbia microbiologist Rosie Redfield, one of the authors of one of the newly published papers, said in a blog posting that NASA's response was "cowardly."

"I'm at a loss for words," she wrote.

It's easy to find commentaries on the Web indicting NASA as well as the authors of the original paper, scientific reviewers, the journal Science and journalists for their part in the arsenic-life controversy. Just as some folks scrambled to trumpet the news that evidence of life had been discovered on Titan, now there's a scramble to assign blame. But scientific sagas don't move as quickly as a Twitter stream, and it's a good bet that this particular saga isn't over quite yet.

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NASA says arsenic-life saga isn't done

Synopsis - Jul 09, 2012

General Information

Solicitation Number: TTO1015 Posted Date: Jul 09, 2012 FedBizOpps Posted Date: Jul 09, 2012 Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No Original Response Date: Dec 31, 2012 Current Response Date: Dec 31, 2012 Classification Code: 99 -- Miscellaneous NAICS Code: 927110 Set-Aside Code:

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 12, Industry Assistance Office, Hampton, VA 23681-0001

Description

NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA solicits interest from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis and may include specific fields of use.

THE TECHNOLOGY:

NASA Langley researchers have developed a wireless, open-circuit SansEC [Sans Electrical Connections] sensor that can be used for pharmaceutical applications without the need for physical contact. Many attributes of a container can be monitored, such as liquid or powder levels, temperature of contents, and changes caused by spoilage. Tampering can also be detected. The unique design of this thin-film sensor allows many of these properties to be measured with the sensor external to the container/package. Fill levels can be measured without the need to open the container. At the core of the technology is the NASA award-winning SansEC sensor, which is damage resilient and environmentally friendly to manufacture and use. The sensors use a magnetic field response measurement acquisition device to provide power to the sensors and to acquire physical property measurements from them.

To express interest in this opportunity, please respond to Sean Sullivan, Research Triangle International (RTI), at: NASA Langley Research Center, Strategic Relationships Office (SRSO), 17 West Taylor St., Mail Stop 218, Building 1212, Room 110 Hampton, Virginia, E-mail: Sean.D.Sullivan@NASA.gov, or phone: 757-864-5055. Please indicate the date and title of the FBO notice and include your company and contact information.

Originally posted here:

NASA Technology Transfer Opportunity: Wireless Sensor for Pharmaceutical Packaging and Monitoring Applications

Synopsis - Jul 09, 2012

General Information

Solicitation Number: TTO1016 Posted Date: Jul 09, 2012 FedBizOpps Posted Date: Jul 09, 2012 Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No Original Response Date: Dec 31, 2012 Current Response Date: Dec 31, 2012 Classification Code: 99 -- Miscellaneous NAICS Code: 927110 Set-Aside Code:

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 12, Industry Assistance Office, Hampton, VA 23681-0001

Description

NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA solicits interest from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis and may include specific fields of use.

THE TECHNOLOGY:

NASA Langley has developed a miniaturized light detection and ranging (LIDAR) velocimetry sensor to analyze high velocity and boundary layer flows in real-world conditions. Using Rayleigh scattering, as opposed to the more common particle scattering, the patent pending NASA sensors provide multiple flow parameters without the need for particle-seeded flows. The compact fiber optic sensor design can be embedded directly in a test surface and allows for a variety of near-surface measurement formats enabling real-time three-component flow velocity mapping, composition, gas density, and temperature data. The versatility of the NASA Micro-LIDAR sensor platform offers broad utility in advanced aerodynamic and fluid dynamic applications requiring boundary layer, unseeded flow measurements.

To express interest in this opportunity, please respond to Sean Sullivan, Research Triangle International (RTI), at: NASA Langley Research Center, Strategic Relationships Office (SRSO), 17 West Taylor St., Mail Stop 218, Building 1212, Room 110 Hampton, Virginia, E-mail: Sean.D.Sullivan@NASA.gov, or phone: 757-864-5055. Please indicate the date and title of the FBO notice and include your company and contact information.

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NASA Technology Transfer Opportunity: Micro LIDAR for Flow Velocity

[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 132 (Tuesday, July 10, 2012)] [Notices] [Pages 40646-40647] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2012-16781]

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[Notice 12-056]

NASA Advisory Council; Technology and Innovation Committee; Meeting Amendment

AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

ACTION: Notice of meeting.

Reference: Notice 12-054, published in the Federal Register on Thursday, June 28, 2012 (Vol. 77, No. 125, page 38678). SUMMARY: This is an amendment of Federal Register Notice 12-054 published on June 28, 2012, to provide additional information. In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces a meeting of the Technology and Innovation Committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC).

DATES: Tuesday, July 24, 2012, 8:00 a.m. to 2:50 p.m. Local Time.

ADDRESSES: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Building 8, Management Conference Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Mike Green, Office of the Chief Technologist, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, (202) 358-4710, fax (202) 358-4078, or g.m.green@nasa.gov.

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NASA Advisory Council Technology and Innovation Committee Meeting 24 Jul 2012: Amendment

It is the last 78 miles of a NASA rover's 154 million-mile journey to Mars that concerns Ravi Prakash the most.

That's because this is the first time that NASA - or anyone else - has ever tried to land something nearly so big as the 1-ton Curiosity rover on Mars, and because so much is riding on this particular mission.

"We've got to go from five times as fast as a speeding bullet - 13,000 mph - all the way to a screeching halt in seven minutes," said Prakash, a Texas City native who now works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the rover's lander team.

Five times the size of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers already on Mars, Curiosity is packed with scientific equipment: HD-resolution cameras that can also capture video; a laser than can ignite a spark on rocks 20 feet away to determine what they're made of; and other high-tech tools including an X-ray diffraction setup, a mass spectrometer, and a gas chromatograph.

With these devices the six-wheeled rover will be able to sample hundreds of layers of sedimentary rock, allowing scientists to understand how the surface of Mars changed over time, and providing a detailed history of the Red Planet and clues to whether life could have flourished there.

But it's got to get there safely at first.

Adding to the pressure is that NASA is not currently planning or building a next generation rover to go to Mars. More than 200 scientists attended a NASA meeting earlier this year in Houston to discuss plans for follow-up missions, but none has been chosen.

Nail-biting time

So Curiosity, itself a decade in the works, is it for a long time.

"With no sense of how or when we will follow this up, and without knowing which direction our tools and techniques are evolving - yes, landing successfully is a big deal," said Mark Lemmon, a Texas A&M University planetary scientist who will help operate the rover on Mars.

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NASA hopes are riding on Mars rover's tricky descent