NASA's Asteroid Mission Takes Shape as Congress Remains Skeptical

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NASA's proposed mission to snag an asteroid and bring it into lunar orbit to be visited by astronauts is beginning to take shape even as arguments over its rationale continue. NASA is asking for $100 million for the mission for FY2014.

According to NasaSpaceFlight.com, the asteroid mission is divided into three parts. They are detection and characterization, rendezvous, capture, and redirection, and finally the expedition to the asteroid by NASA astronauts. The shape of the mission was set forth in a recent presentation to the human exploration and operations committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) by William Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.

Detection and characterization

First NASA has to find an asteroid that meets all of its criteria, according to NASASpaceFlight.com. It has to be the right size (about seven meters in diameter according to the original Keck Institute study), the right mass, and the right spin characteristics. The asteroid also has to be already headed toward cislunar space to make it easier to redirect it into lunar orbit. The Keck Institute study suggests that the asteroid be a carbonaceous C-type asteroid containing a mix of volatiles, organic materials, rock, and metal.

Rendezvous, capture, and redirection

Next, a robotic spacecraft, using a 40-kilowatt solar electric propulsion engine, would be sent forth to capture the asteroid and redirect it into a retrograde orbit around the moon, according to NASASpaceFlight.com. The spacecraft would have an inflatable bag or sleeve that would capture the asteroid and a hydrazine system that would help to despin it. Using the continuous thrust possible for an SEP engine, the spacecraft would then deliver it to a lunar orbit that NASA estimates will be stable for a hundred years.

Human mission

Once the asteroid is safely in lunar orbit, a crew of NASA astronauts, flying in an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle launched by the heavy lift Space Launch System, would visit the asteroid in a 20-day mission, NASASpaceFlight.com. The astronauts would use a boom of some sort to connect the Orion with the robotic spacecraft, which would remain attached to the asteroid, and use them to translate from the Orion to the asteroid with several space walks. The astronauts would explore the small asteroid and take samples that would be returned to Earth for study.

NASA: asteroid mission all that can be afforded

According to the Orlando Sentinel, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden ran into some skepticism during a House hearing on the space agency's exploration plans. Why not, the question was posed, go to the moon instead? Bolden replied that considering the meager budgets NASA has been getting, the asteroid mission is all that can be afforded.

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NASA's Asteroid Mission Takes Shape as Congress Remains Skeptical

NASA Kicks Off 20th Great Moonbuggy Race

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April 26, 2013

Image Credit: NASA / MSFC / Pay Downward

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

NASAs annual Great Moonbuggy Race kicked off today in Huntsville, Alabama, marking 20 years since the competition began.

The annual Great Moonbuggy Race involves high school- and college-aged students who build lightweight, human-powered moonbuggies that address many of the same design challenges NASA and industry engineers overcame during the Apollo missions. In the late 1960s, NASA engineers designed the Apollo-era Lunar Roving Vehicles to allow astronauts to range across the harsh lunar surface.

The 20-year-old competition is organized by the Academic Affairs Office at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and is sponsored by the Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. During the race, students must overcome a moonbuggy course, comprised of a winding half-mile of gravel embankments, sand pits and obstacles that mimic the harsh surface of the moon.

Essentially, the moonbuggies built by the students look like a very complicated four-wheeled bicycle. However, buggies need a well thought out suspension system in order to get through the course efficiently.

Some buggies show up with no suspension at all, says race authority Dennis Gallagher. Im not sure why theyd make that particular choice. I guess theyre interested in reliving the bone-crushing antique wagon or automobile experience circa 1905?

NASA says only the strongest buggies survive its simulated lunar course. Over the years, it has seen teams walk away dragging pieces of their buggies with them, including broken chains, snapped frames and buckled wheels.

This competition provides a tremendous amount of real-world experience you just cant replicate in a classroom, said NASA engineer Mike Selby, who was a student racer for the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1995 and 1996. Whether students serve as buggy drivers, wrench jockeys, welders, team secretaries or fundraisers, its an experience none will ever forget and one that demonstrates career paths and aptitudes that can change their lives forever.

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NASA Kicks Off 20th Great Moonbuggy Race

NASA, Partners Solicit Creative Materials Manufacturing Solutions

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NASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. State Department and Nike have issued a challenge to identify 10 game-changing innovations that could enable fabric systems to enhance global economic growth, drives human prosperity and replenishes the planet's resources.

The challenge is open through July 15 and seeks creative innovations in the materials from which fabrics are made, with a focus on positive social and environmental impact in space and on Earth. Ten innovators will be selected to present their fabrics solutions at the LAUNCH: System Challenge 2013 forum, which NASA will host Sept. 26-28 at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Fabrics, and the materials from which they are made, are important for designing new spacecraft and spacesuits that will protect astronauts as they venture to destinations farther than they have been before. Innovations presented at the LAUNCH: System Challenge 2013 forum may lead to new, stronger, lighter and more affordable fabrics that will benefit NASA as it sends humans deeper into our solar system.

Spacecraft traveling to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit, such as an asteroid or Mars, will need stronger materials to protect astronauts from galactic radiation. Likewise, when astronauts are outside their spacecraft exploring an asteroid or the Martian surface, they will need new, stronger, more durable and more flexible spacesuits.

NASA and the LAUNCH Council, which is made up of thought leaders representing a diverse and collaborative body of entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, government, media and business, will participate in the forum and help guide these innovations forward. The selected LAUNCH innovators will receive networking and mentoring opportunities from influential business and government leaders, as well as portfolio presentations.

Previous LAUNCH forums have focused on water, health, energy and waste management. These forums resulted in innovations, including technology that enables irrigation using brackish, saline and polluted water; a biodegradable needle that can deliver vaccines or medicine under the skin using a pressure device; a tiny holographic microscope attached to a cell phone that can detect parasites and bacteria in blood and water in remote locations; a handheld lab-in-a-box that diagnoses a variety of diseases in a matter of minutes; a modular, flexible smart-grid distribution technology to provide access to power for those in need; and a simple, affordable fuel cell that converts biomass directly to electricity.

NASA invests in technologies to create a better future, and those investments pay off here on Earth, creating new jobs and improving lives. LAUNCH was created to identify, showcase and support innovative approaches to global sustainability challenges. LAUNCH searches for visionaries whose ideas, technologies or programs show great promise for making tangible impacts on society in the developed and developing worlds.

For more information about LAUNCH: System Challenge 2013 and how to enter the challenge, visit: http://www.launch.org/challenges/systems-2013

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

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NASA, Partners Solicit Creative Materials Manufacturing Solutions

NASA probes unscathed by three solar eruptions

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ESA and NASA / SOHO

This image of a coronal mass ejection (CME) was captured on April 20 as the CME was headed in the direction of Mercury. The large bright spot on the left is Venus.

By Denise Chow Space.com

Two NASA spacecraft are safe and sound after the sun unleashed three intense back-to-back solar eruptions in their direction, scientists say.

NASA's Messenger spacecraft in orbit around Mercury and the Stereo-A, which studies the sun from Earth orbit, suffered no damage from the passing solar storms.

On April 20, the sun fired off a solar eruptionthat sent huge wave of plasma and charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), toward Mercury. The next day, the sun unleashed two more CMEs in the same direction, and managers from both the Messenger and Stereo missions were alerted of the potential hazards should the CMEs hit or pass closely to the probes.

But, it appears both spacecraft made it through unscathed.

"The CME did pass by Stereo-A we can see it in the data," said C. Alex Young, a solar astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Other than that, we didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

In severe cases, CMEs can scramble a spacecraft's onboard electronics, but these particular eruptions were not very strong, Young explained. Still, spacecraft manufacturers are mindful of the amount of radiation their hardware will likely be exposed to in space.

"These spacecraft, while they certainly can be affected by space weather, they're generally made to withstand reasonable amounts of radiation," Young told Space.com.

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NASA probes unscathed by three solar eruptions

Planetary Scientists Protest 'Disastrous' NASA Budget Cuts Proposed for 2014

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Supporters of planetary science are rallying against NASA's proposed 2014 budget, which they say unfairly guts funding for solar system research and exploration.

The Obama administration unveiled the budget plan April 10, requesting $17.7 billion for NASA $50 million less than the agency got in 2012. The budget must be approved by Congress before it becomes official. Under the budget proposal, planetary science would receive $1.217 billion in 2014. Discounting the $50 million earmarked for producing plutonium-238, which fuels deep space vehicles (this used to be paid for by the Department of Energy), and $20 million for asteroid detection in service of a future manned asteroid mission, this represents a $268 million cut from planetary science funding levels approved by Congress for 2013, advocates said.

"The Planetary Society has deep concerns about the continued effort to defund planetary science in NASA's 2014 budget proposal," wrote officials from the society, which was founded by astronomer Carl Sagan to promote solar-system exploration, in testimony submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology April 24. "Without immediate investment in technology and mission development not possible under the FY14 proposal the United States will go 'radio dark' in almost all regions of the solar system by the end of the decade." [NASA's 2014 Space Goals Explained in Pictures]

The proposed budget would include $105 million in funds to support an asteroid-capture mission and other asteroid studies, but eliminate a planned robotic mission to Jupiter's intriguing moon Europa, which harbors an ocean buried beneath its icy surface that may support microbial life. And current missions, such as NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn and the Messenger orbiter around Mercury, may come to premature ends.

Bill Nye, chief executive officer of the Planetary Society, called the budget "shortsighted and disastrous" in a letter urging supporters to write their Congressional representatives in support of planetary science. The organization aims to send 25,000 messages to Capitol Hill by April 28.

A group of lawmakers also joined in the campaign, penning a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden on April 19 asking that he and the Obama administration rethink their 2013 NASA budget, which is still unfinalized.

"We write to express opposition to any Fiscal Year 2013 NASA Operating Plan that disproportionately applies sequester and across-the-board cuts to the science budget," wrote Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in a letter signed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative John Culberson (R-TX). "While we fully understand that the funding levels enumerated in the bill and report are subject to change to reflect the across the board and sequester cuts, we expect that the balance among programs will remain consistent with the structure directed by Congress."

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitterand Google+. Follow us@Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article onSPACE.com.

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Planetary Scientists Protest 'Disastrous' NASA Budget Cuts Proposed for 2014

NASA Probes Near Sun Safe from Triple Solar Eruption

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Two NASA spacecraft are safe and sound, after the sun unleashed three intense back-to-back solar eruptions in their direction, scientists say.

NASA's Messenger spacecraft in orbit around Mercury and the Stereo-A, which studies the sun from Earth orbit, suffered no damage from the passing solar storms.

On April 20, the sun fired off a solar eruption that sent huge wave of plasma and charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), toward Mercury. The next day, the sun unleashed two more CMEs in the same direction, and managers from both the Messenger and Stereo missions were alerted of the potential hazards should the CMEs hit or pass closely to the probes.

But, it appears both spacecraft made it through unscathed.

"The CME did pass by Stereo-A we can see it in the data," said C. Alex Young, a solar astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Other than that, we didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

In severe cases, CMEs can scramble a spacecraft's onboard electronics, but these particular eruptions were not very strong, Young explained. Still, spacecraft manufacturers are mindful of the amount of radiation their hardware will likely be exposed to in space.

"These spacecraft, while they certainly can be affected by spaceweather, they're generally made to withstand reasonable amounts of radiation," Young told SPACE.com.

Stereo-A is one of a pair of twin space probes tasked with monitoring solar weather events. The Stereo spacecraft (short for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) were both launched in 2006.

NASA'sMessenger spacecrafthas been orbiting Mercury since March 2011. The mission completed its first full map of Mercury's surface last month.

The sun's activity ebbs and flows on an 11-year cycle, and solar weather events are expected to increase this year as the current cycle ramps up toward the solar maximum. The current solar weather cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24.

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NASA Probes Near Sun Safe from Triple Solar Eruption

Graduating Citadel cadet headed to medical school then home to Walterboro

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Quick links to other pages on this site | Still can't find it? see Site Index Paul Zoeller/staffCitadel cadet Lance Braye will graduate in May and start medical school at MUSC before moving back to Walterboro to practice. Buy this photo

Lance Braye probably could go anywhere after he finishes medical school, but hes going to his hometown of Walterboro to practice, and hopefully launch a charity to help young people.

Graduation ceremonies

May 3

Braye, 21, will graduate from The Citadel next weekend, but quickly will jump into another challenging academic setting at the Medical University of South Carolina in August.

Hes a whiz kid, a perfectionist, the valedictorian of his class at Colleton County High School and a company commander at The Citadel.

He loves his hometown, and says its much more than the crime- ridden place portrayed in the media.

Gang activity and a string of shootings in recent years drew unwanted attention to the rural Colleton County community that bills itself as the front porch of the Lowcountry and prefers to highlight its quaint downtown and outdoor offerings.

Authorities intensified their efforts after a November 2009 drive-by shooting killed two adults and a 20-month-old girl. Violent crime has dropped in the city since that time, officials have said.

But Braye said he has never felt unsafe there. He gets a warm feeling when he sees the Colleton County sign on the way home from The Citadel. This is the place that made us, he said. A chunk of my heart is stuck there.

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Graduating Citadel cadet headed to medical school then home to Walterboro

Kaplan Test Prep’s Fourth Annual Medical School Insider Event on April 29 at 8 PM EDT Will Give Tomorrow’s Doctors the …

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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

With the upcoming changes to the MCAT and new breakthroughs in medicine happening on a regular basis, these are exciting times in both medical education and healthcare. To ensure that todays pre-meds receive the most accurate and up-to-date information on the medical school admissions process and the issues theyll face in their future profession, Kaplan Test Prep will hold its fourth annual live, online Medical School Insider event on Monday, April 29, beginning at 8 PM EDT. The two-hour event will feature an all-star panel of experts, including: Leila Diaz, Assistant Dean of Admissions and Diversity, Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine; Dr. Kathleen Kolberg, Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies for the College of Science and Health, University of Notre Dame; Paul T. White, Assistant Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and Dr. Elizabeth Wiley, President of the American Medical Student Association.

Among the topics to be discussed at Kaplan Test Preps Medical School Insider event:

There will also be a question-and-answer segment during which attendees can interact with panelists and each other. The program will include an active Twitter chat with the hashtag #MedInsider.

Medical School Insider is a must-attend event for the tens of thousands of college students and young professionals who are considering becoming doctors, said Owen Farcy, director of pre-health programs, Kaplan Test Prep, who is moderating the event and responsible for revising Kaplans MCAT curriculum to meet the new content demands of the 2015 MCAT. Pre-meds will leave Medical School Insider not only equipped with vital information about the medical school admissions process, medical education and healthcare trends, but also with a renewed sense of purpose about achieving what has been, for many of them, a lifelong goal.

Medical School Insider is Kaplan Test Preps most widely attended pre-med event, with thousands of students logging on to participate every year. To date, over 3,000 pre-meds have already registered for the 2013 event.

To register for the live, online event, visit http://www.kaptest.com/pulse. If you are a reporter or blogger interesting in covering the event, please contact Russell Schaffer at 212.453.7538 or russell.schaffer@kaplan.com.

About Kaplan Test Prep

Kaplan Test Prep (www.kaptest.com) is a premier provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. Established in 1938, Kaplan is the world leader in the test prep industry. With a comprehensive menu of online offerings as well as a complete array of print books and digital products, Kaplan offers preparation for more than 90 standardized tests, including entrance exams for secondary school, college and graduate school, as well as professional licensing exams for attorneys, physicians and nurses. Kaplan also provides private tutoring and graduate admissions consulting services.

Note to editors: Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (WPO)

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Medical school applications drop nationwide, study says

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Originally published in Orientation 1999

The number of students applying to medical schools throughout the country fell almost to 5 percent during the 1998 school year, according to a study released this week by the Journal of American MEdical Association (JAMA).

The number of students applying to Boston University Medical School mirrored the national drop of 4.7 percent. At BU Medical School, the number of applications fell from 10,026 in 1998 to 9,898 this year, said BUMS spokesman Robert Brogna.

Contrary to the national trend 4,791 students applied to Harvard Medical School in 1999, the greatest number of applicants in 20 years, according to Harvard MEdical School spokesman Bill Schaller.

The Sept. 1 issue of JAMA revealed that 1998 was the second consecutive year the number of medical school applicatnts decreased. 1997 figures were down from 8.4 percent from the prior year.

The total number of applicants for the 1998 school year was 41,004, down from 43,020 in 1997, according to a survey completed by all 125 accredited U.S. medical schools.

Rob Bellow, a first-year BUMS student, thinks the decrease in applicants can be partly attributed to the rising cost of a medical education.

In my opinion, the estimated $225,000 of debt is a deterrent, he said.

Bellow added that the decrease might have resulted from high competition for acceptance to medical schools.

Many parents want their kids to be doctors, but when students take the MCAT and dont do as well as they expected, they dont apply, said Karen Carrigan, a first-year BUMS student.

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Medical school applications drop nationwide, study says