Despite US-Russia tensions, space station launch to go as planned

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The political acrimony following Russia's annexation of Crimea hasn't extended into Earth's orbit, as a US astronaut and two Russian astronaut prepare to fly to the International Space Station on Tuesday.

The tense political relationship between the United States and Russia will not affect the planned launch of a NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts to the International Space Station Tuesday (March 25), NASA officials reiterated last week.

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The situation in the Ukraine has led to heightened tensions between Russia and the United States recently. Russian President Vladimir Putin annexedCrimea, a region of the Ukraine, making the peninsula a part of Russia on Friday (March 21). President Barack Obama and other world leaders have condemned Putin's decision, bringing sanctions against Russia in response.

NASA's Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev are set to launch atop a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station Tuesday, and thepolitical climatewill not disturb this event, NASA officials have said. The political situation has not affected the relationship between the Russian and U.S. space programs, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly wrote in an email to Space.com Friday (March 21). [See views of Earth taken by astronauts in space]

"We have a great relationship with all of our international partners, and the crew is focused on launch," Byerly told Space.com.

Since the end of NASA's space shuttle program, the agency has relied on Russia'sSoyuz spacecraftto ferry astronauts to and from the space station. By 2017, NASA officials hope to start using private spacecraft now under development in the United States to deliver astronauts to orbit.

International cooperation plays a huge role in the space station program, Mike Fossum, deputy director of flight crew operations for the International Space Station, said during an interview on March 23.

"I think the international cooperation of the 15 nations we have participating in the International Space Station program is really important," Fossum said. "It's great as we share our resources from the different countries, our skills and our teamwork, our experience come together to make these kinds of things happen. It's important to us now to have the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our way of getting people to and from theInternational Space Station."

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Despite US-Russia tensions, space station launch to go as planned

NASA Marshall Kicks Off Game Changing Composite Cryotank Testing

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NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is set to begin a series of structural and pressure tests on one of the largest composite cryogenic fuel tanks ever manufactured. Advanced composite cryotanks will help enable NASA's future deep space exploration missions.

Media are invited to view the unloading of the 18-foot-diameter (5.5-meter) composite cryotank from NASAs Super Guppy aircraft onMarch 27 at 7 a.m. CDTat Redstone Army Airfield. In addition, journalists are invited to interview John Vickers, NASA project manager, Composite Cryotank Technology Demonstration (CCTD), and Dan Rivera, Boeing program manager for CCTD.

For more than 50 years, metal tanks have carried fuel to launch rockets and propelled them into space. NASA is pursuing composite cryogenic fuel tanks, a potentially game-changing technology, because the tanks could yield significant cost and weight reductions on future launch vehicles. Once installed in Marshalls test facility, the composite cryotank will undergo a series of tests at extreme pressures and temperatures, similar to those experienced during spaceflight.

Reporters interested in covering the tank arrival should contact Janet Anderson (janet.l.anderson@nasa.gov) of the Marshall Public & Employee Communications Office at256-544-0034.

Journalists must report to the Redstone Visitor Center at Gate 9, Interstate 565 interchange at Rideout Road/Research Park Boulevard no later than6 a.m., Thursday, March 27, for escort to the Redstone Army Airfield.

Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. Journalists will need a photo identification and proof of car insurance.

For more information about how the Composite Cryotank Technologies and Demonstration project will revolutionize tank design, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2014/14-043.html

The project is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA's future missions. For more information about NASA's investment in space technology, visit:

spacetech

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Delay in docking of Soyuz craft with International Space Station

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Last Updated Mar 25, 2014 10:53 PM EDT

Soyuz TMA-12M commander Alexander Skvortsov, flight engineer Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:17 p.m. EDT, kicking off a planned four-orbit six-hour rendezvous with the station.

NASA astronaut Steven Swanson and two Russian cosmonauts on their way to the International Space Station, March 25, 2014.

NASA

Skvortsov and his crewmates had hoped to be the fifth crew to carry out a four-orbit rendezvous. They executed the first two rendezvous firings on schedule, but the third firing was not carried out, apparently because the spacecraft was not in the expected attitude, or orientation.

With the rendezvous sequence interrupted, Russian flight controllers defaulted to the more traditional two-day sequence while engineers reviewed telemetry and stood by for additional passes over Russian ground stations to collect more data.

"Right now, we don't understand exactly what happened," a Russian flight controller radioed the crew. "So we'll analyze and review all the telemetry. On the next orbit, there will be a comm pass. ... During this comm pass, we'll download the whole mass of telemetry and we will analyze it and review it and we'll try to figure out what happened."

The two-day rendezvous profile will be familiar to Skvortsov, who followed the same set of procedures during his first flight to the space station in 2010.

Assuming the problem can be resolved in time, Skvortsov will oversee an automated docking at the station's upper Poisk module around 7:58 p.m. Thursday. Josh Byerly, NASA's mission control commentator, said the crew was in no danger, and that more than enough supplies were on board to support a two-day 34-orbit rendezvous.

Whenever they arrive, Skvortsov and his crewmates will be welcomed aboard the space station by Expedition 39 commander Koichi Wakata, cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio.

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Delay in docking of Soyuz craft with International Space Station

Red-light cameras without the drama

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By all accounts, the look on the police chief's face was priceless.

There stood Jane Castor in her crisp police uniform and customary poker face at a Tampa City Council meeting. Council members had each just spoken of their support for those traffic cameras that catch red-light-running scofflaws.

And why not? The chief said during the city's 2-year-old red-light camera program, both crashes and tickets were down at Tampa's diciest intersections, indicating drivers were mending their pedal-to-the-metal ways. All good.

So, naturally, the City Council then voted 4-3 to kill the same red-light cameras they just said positive things about. Had there been a cartoon bubble over the normally unflappable police chief's head, it would have said something like:

Wha...?

At the heart of last week's vote to shutter the city's successful red-light camera program were politics and a power struggle, a strong mayor versus a council determined to be heard. (And also not appreciative of being called showboats for it.) Which makes for interesting political theater, Tampa style, if not for the actual public safety issue at its core.

It started like this: Back when red-light cameras first won approval, three council members wanted the city's cut of the $158 ticket nearly $1.64 million last year to go specifically for transportation improvements instead of into the general fund.

Seems reasonable. Even if general revenue is already paying for traffic fixes, even if this earmarking would be largely symbolic, it could go a long way toward countering the oft-heard criticism that these cameras are for making money, not for making us safer.

So when red-light cameras came up for approval again last week, those three council members were joined by a fourth in the call to spend at least some of that money specifically on street safety, resulting in a 4-3 no-vote.

Probably it did not help that afterward Mayor Bob Buckhorn while vowing to work with the council to reach an agreement on this was quoted in a Channel 10 interview implying council members up for election may have been showboating and grandstanding. And, ouch.

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NASA: Snag Delays Arrival Of Crew At Space Station

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BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) An engine snag has delayed the arrival of a Russian spacecraft carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station until Thursday, NASA said on Wednesday.

A rocket carrying Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and American Steve Swanson to the space station blasted off successfully early Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz booster rocket lifted off as scheduled at 3:17 a.m. local time Wednesday (2117 GMT Tuesday), lighting up the night skies over the steppe with a giant fiery tail. It entered a designated orbit about 10 minutes after the launch and was expected to reach the space station in six hours. All onboard systems were working flawlessly, and the crew was feeling fine.

But NASA said in a statement on its website that the arrival was delayed after a 24-second engine burn that was necessary to adjust the Soyuz spacecraft's orbiting path "did not occur as planned."

The crew is in good spirits and is in no danger, but will have to wait until Thursday for the Soyuz TMA-12M to arrive and dock at the space station, NASA said. The arrival is now scheduled for 7:58 EDT (2358 GMT) Thursday.

Russian spacecraft used to routinely travel two days to reach the orbiting laboratory before last year. Wednesday would have been only the fifth time that a crew would have taken the six-hour "fast-track" route to the station.

NASA said that Moscow flight control has yet to determine why the engine burn did not occur.

The three astronauts traveling in the Soyuz will be greeted by Japan's Koichi Wakata, NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, who have been at the station since November. Wakata is the first Japanese astronaut to lead the station. The new crew is scheduled to stay in orbit for six months.

The joint mission is taking place at a time when U.S.-Russian relations on Earth are at their lowest ebb in decades, but the U.S. and Russia haven't allowed their disagreements over Ukraine to get in the way of their cooperation in space.

Swanson is a veteran of two U.S. space shuttle missions, and Skvortsov spent six months at the space outpost in 2010. Artemyev is on his first flight to space.

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NASA: Snag Delays Arrival Of Crew At Space Station

NASA diapers forced men to make big revelation

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It was a mission-critical element: the size of NASA astronauts' manhood. Seriously. The Houston Chronicle resurrects the fascinating historical tidbit by way of the Science Channel's Moon Machines documentary series, in which engineer Donald Rethke explained the very precise nature of early space diapers.

The Maximum Absorbency Garment system, donned by Gemini and Apollo astronauts, featured one very specific element: a sleeve likened to a condom with a hole at the tip that enabled the men to urinate into a pouch with a one-way valve in their suits.

Three sleeve sizes were available, small, medium, and large. And astronauts couldn't fib, explains Rethke. If they decided to order the next size up, the sheath wouldn't fit snugly, and liquid could potentially leak out, causing damage.

To make the process a little less embarrassing, the sizes were later renamed: large, gigantic, and humongous. Motherboard notes that the urination issue was first brought to the fore by Alan Shepard, who spent hours in the Freedom 7 capsule in advance of a quick 15-minute "suborbital hop." Denied permission to leave the capsule, he opted to pee in his suitforcing Mission Control to turn off his biomedical sensors until the flow of oxygen in the suit dried the pee, allowing the sensors to be switched on.

Today's astronauts enjoy actual restrooms, though MAG systems are provided to astronauts who are operating outside space vehicles. (Other unusual NASA history: A scientist "stole" a satellite from the agency in 1983and is ready to give it back.)

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NASA diapers forced men to make big revelation

NASA Announces 2014 Tribal College and University Awards

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NASA's Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) has awarded approximately$2 millionin new cooperative agreements to three tribal colleges and universities (TCUs).

These new agreements provide opportunities forTCUstudents, faculty and staff to engage in NASA-related science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities.

The awards, made through the NASA Tribal College and University Experiential Learning Opportunity (TCU-ELO) program, have a three-year performance period and range in value from$512,700 to $783,000. The agreements will assist these tribal colleges and their partners in the creation of experiential learning opportunities for students.

The selected institutions for 2014 are:

--Haskell Indian Nations University,Lawrence, Kan. -- Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute,Albuquerque, N.M. --Chief Dull Knife College,Lame Deer, Mont.

The winning proposals offer innovative methods, approaches and concepts to make appropriate use of current NASA-unique engineering and scientific resources. There also is a strong emphasis on engaging students and educators at the elementary, secondary and undergraduate levels.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center inGreenbelt, Md., manages and administers TCU-ELO activity. TCU-ELO supports NASA's goal of engaging tribal community in the critical STEM disciplines and focuses on inspiring the next generation of explorers.

For a list of selected organizations and project descriptions, click on "Selected Proposals" and see the entry for "2013-2014 NASA Tribal College and University Experiential Learning Opportunity (TCU-ELO)" at:

http://nspires.nasaprs.com

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NASA Announces 2014 Tribal College and University Awards

NASA Seeks Suborbital Flight Services Proposals for Technology Demonstrations

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NASA is seeking proposals from U.S. commercial suborbital reusable launch vehicle providers to integrate and fly technology payloads for the space agency.

NASA uses companies for suborbital flights to encourage and facilitate the growth of this important aerospace market while also providing a means to advance a wide range of new launch vehicle and space technologies.

NASA successfully selected seven companies in 2011 to provide these commercial services. Since then, the agency has selected 69 technology demonstration payloads requesting suborbital flights and has sponsored 25 commercial payload-flights. This new competition hopes to establish a pool of companies capable of providing flight opportunities to a variety of program-sponsored payloads by awarding contracts to multiple vendors.

"America's pioneering efforts in opening up near space -- from Earth to the edge of space -- for testing new space technologies has taken off and continues to soar," said Michael Gazarik, associate administrator for Space Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We've helped seed this emerging commercial market while also gaining return to the taxpayer on advanced technology development. This new call for commercial providers will help the industry continue to grow while providing a valuable service to NASA and the nation."

The selected platforms may include suborbital reusable launch vehicles capable of flying to altitudes above 62 miles, as well as high-altitude balloons. The flights will expose the payloads to reduced gravity and near-space environments.

Technology flights are expected to reduce risks associated with emerging technologies and procedures, and overall space operations in future missions, by demonstrating their applications in a relevant environment.

NASA plans on contracting for single payload positions on pre-approved platforms, then pay for space as used. This is a cost-effective way to enable flight testing of new technologies while taking advantage of available space on the best platforms for a given technology. NASA also may choose to fly multiple technologies on a single suborbital flight platform.

The program will accept proposals from companies who have operational vehicles, or those that have conducted test and evaluation flights on vehicles capable of providing flight profiles specified in the solicitation. As this is not a continuation or extension of the 2011 solicitation, previously selected companies also will need to propose to this solicitation to be considered for flight selection.

This solicitation has a base period of performance of two years, with three, one-year options, and total combined contract value of $45 million. The program intends to provide opportunities for additional vendors to be added to the provider pool annually. The solicitation is open until May 8, 2014. The announcement of opportunity can be viewed at:

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NASA says engine issue delays crew's arrival at International Space Station

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BAIKONUR, Khazakhstan An engine snag has delayed the arrival of a Russian spacecraft carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station until Thursday, NASA said on Wednesday.

A rocket carrying Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and American Steve Swanson to the space station blasted off successfully early Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz booster rocket lifted off as scheduled at 3:17 a.m. local time Wednesday (2117 GMT Tuesday), lighting up the night skies over the steppe with a giant fiery tail. It entered a designated orbit about 10 minutes after the launch and was expected to reach the space station in six hours. All onboard systems were working flawlessly, and the crew was feeling fine.

But NASA said in a statement on its website that the arrival was delayed after a 24-second engine burn that was necessary to adjust the Soyuz spacecraft's orbiting path "did not occur as planned."

The crew is in good spirits and is in no danger, but will have to wait until Thursday for the Soyuz TMA-12M to arrive and dock at the space station, NASA said. The arrival is now scheduled for 7:58 EDT (2358 GMT) Thursday.

Russian spacecraft used to routinely travel two days to reach the orbiting laboratory before last year. Wednesday would have been only the fifth time that a crew would have taken the six-hour "fast-track" route to the station.

NASA said that Moscow flight control has yet to determine why the engine burn did not occur.

The three astronauts traveling in the Soyuz will be greeted by Japan's Koichi Wakata, NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, who have been at the station since November. Wakata is the first Japanese astronaut to lead the station. The new crew is scheduled to stay in orbit for six months.

The joint mission is taking place at a time when U.S.-Russian relations on Earth are at their lowest ebb in decades, but the U.S. and Russia haven't allowed their disagreements over Ukraine to get in the way of their cooperation in space.

Swanson is a veteran of two U.S. space shuttle missions, and Skvortsov spent six months at the space outpost in 2010. Artemyev is on his first flight to space.

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NASA says engine issue delays crew's arrival at International Space Station

NASA Solicits New Collaborative Partnerships with Commercial Space Industry

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Building on the success of NASA's commercial spaceflight initiatives, agency officials announced Monday plans to solicit proposals from U.S. private enterprises for unfunded partnerships to collaboratively develop new commercial space capabilities.

"The growing U.S. commercial spaceflight industry is opening low-Earth orbit in ways that will improve lives on Earth, drive economic growth and power 21st century innovations," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations. "As NASA again pioneers a path into deep space, we look forward to sharing our 50 years of spaceflight experience and fostering partnerships in ways that benefit our nation's ambitious spaceflight goals."

The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative will advance entrepreneurial efforts through access to NASA's spaceflight resources. Using Space Act Agreements (SAAs), NASA and its partners would agree to a series of mutually beneficial activities. New partnerships must identify benefits under one or more elements of NASA's 2014 Strategic Plan, which include expanding human presence into the solar system and surface of Mars to advance exploration, science, innovation, benefits to humanity and international collaboration.

The partnerships would have no exchange of funds and each party will bear the cost of its participation. NASA's contributions through resulting SAAs could include technical expertise, assessments, lessons learned, technologies and data.

"As with NASA's previous unfunded commercial partnerships, U.S. companies significantly benefit from the agency's extensive infrastructure, experience and knowledge in spaceflight development and operations," said Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development. "We hope these partnerships will increase the likelihood that these entrepreneurial activities will be successful."

An Announcement for Proposals will be released on March 31 for the competitive selection of one or more SAAs. NASA plans a pre-proposal teleconference on April 3 to discuss the initiative and answer questions. For more information about the solicitation and teleconference, visit:

http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/ccsc

CSCC is one of several NASA partnership initiatives with the commercial space industry. Others include the Lunar CATALYST initiative, which seeks proposals for commercial robotic lunar lander capabilities, and the Asteroid Redirect Mission Broad Agency Announcement, which seeks proposals for studies related to NASA's plan to collect and redirect an asteroid, then send astronauts to collect samples.

These initiatives build on the successful legacy of NASA's current and previous commercial space activities, including the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiative. Through COTS, two U.S. companies developed new rockets and spacecraft capable of providing cargo resupply services to the International Space Station. Similar initiatives are underway with commercial partners to develop human transportation capabilities for crewed flights this decade.

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Wikipedia founder calls alt-medicine practitioners lunatic charlatans

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A diagram about Emotional Freedom Techniques that is hosted on Wikipedia.

Several months ago, the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP), an alternative medicine non-profit, began a petition on Change.org asking Wikipedia to create and enforce new policies that allow for true scientific discourse about holistic approaches to healing. The petition reached 7,000 signatures in mid-January and then largely stalled. But this weekend, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales responded to the request, saying that no amount of signatures would get him on board with ACEP's request.

In its petition, ACEP wrote to Wikipedia, people who are interested in the benefits of Energy Medicine, Energy Psychology, and specific approaches such as the Emotional Freedom Techniques, Thought Field Therapy, and the Tapas Acupressure Technique, turn to your pages, trust what they read, and do not pursue getting help from these approaches which research has, in fact, proven to be of great benefit to many.

These pages are controlled by a few self-appointed 'skeptics' who serve as de facto censors for Wikipedia, the petition continued. They clothe their objections in the language of the narrowest possible understanding of science in order to inhibit open discussion of innovation in health care. As of this writing, another 800 people have signed the petition in support of a revision of Wikipedia's policies.

Wales, however, responded on Change.org with a short note:

No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful.

Wikipedia's policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journalsthat is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse." It isn't.

Wikipedia's guidelines for the inclusion of information are outlined at length on its project pages, but the ACEP did not identify a specific rule it wanted added or excised in its grievances. (The ACEP has not yet responded to Ars' request for comment. This article will be updated if we hear back.)

One rule that may have irked alternative medicine proponents might be that Wikipedia tries to avoid being the host of original perspectives. As the site states on oneproject page, Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source.

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Wikipedia founder calls alt-medicine practitioners lunatic charlatans

Operation Medicine Drop nets more than 70 pounds of pills

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Published: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 at 6:10 p.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 at 6:10 p.m.

Operation Medicine Drop in Polk County bagged a total of 56,926 pills and removed more than 4,500 doses of controlled substances from the community on Saturday.

The Polk County Sheriffs Office, which held the event in conjunction with Tryon Police Department, Tryon Fire Department and the Saluda Police Department, called the collection very successful in a news release Tuesday.

Residents responded in positive stride to get prescription drugs that were no longer of value to the prescribed off the streets. By taking part in these take back events, it aids in the prevention of keeping them from being abused or distributed illegally on our streets, the Sheriffs Office said in the release.

Citizens deposited unused medications at the Sheriffs Office, Saluda Police Department, Sunny View Fire Department, Tryon Estates and Tryon Fire Department during the collection Saturday.

Officers collected a total of 56,926 pills that weighed more than 70 pounds. According to the release, 4,536 of the dosage units were controlled substances.

Prescription drug abuse is one of the most abused forms of drug use that plagues North Carolina, according to the release.

The national Operation Medicine Drop campaign gives residents an opportunity to rid their homes of these drugs which are so commonly sought after during other criminal activities such as breaking and entering, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Operation Medicine Drop partners with Safe Kids North Carolina, the Drug Enforcement Administration, North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations, and local law enforcement to collect and safely destroy these drugs during this campaign. Once the dosages are collected, the State Bureau of Investigation gathers them from across the state, where they are later transported by the North Carolina Highway Patrol to a state-approved incinerator.

Operation Medicine Drop events typically take place statewide in the spring and fall.

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Operation Medicine Drop nets more than 70 pounds of pills