JSC Wants To Build a Replicator

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NASA JSC Solicitation: Hardware and Software Supporting the Maker Project

"The Crew and Thermal Systems Division, EVA Tools Branch (EC7) at the Johnson Space Center seeks to acquire contract support for a software/hardware development project for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. The project supported is entitled "MAKER" and is pursuing an advanced manufacturing concept being developed and evaluated for deployment in future space exploration architectures requiring manufacturing capability in the spaceflight/mission environment."

Beyond Augustine

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Beyond Augustine II, Dennis Wingo

"In August of this year I wrote a missive concerning what happens after the Augustine report is released. Well, now that has happened, so what is next? The overall impression is that they did a good job technically in coming up with options and laying out the rational for the options. The concern is not there, the question is does this report provide to the president and NASA a viable path forward? In a curious move, the commission took a big risk and basically rejected one of the central directives from the White House (3d in the Scope and Objectives) which was: Fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities."

Analyzing LCROSS’ Plume

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Strange Brew at LCROSS's Crash Site, Sky & Telescope

"All this speculation is intriguing -- but "Where's the beef?" you might ask. Colaprete assures me that all the instruments in the shepherding spacecraft got great results, and that the delay in revealing the compositional analyses stems from having lots of spectral signatures to sort through and categorize. Colaprete says some of these findings will be made public in a couple of weeks. (Don't be surprised if he announces that one of the spectrometers did, indeed, detect water in the plume.)"

Trash Talking and End Runs at NASA HQ

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Keith's note: With the "no change" period soon coming to an end 120 days after the swearing in of Charlie Bolden and Lori Garver, a number of people are worried about their jobs and/or the structure of their organization. True to form, Ed Weiler is trash talking people again - people who he fears might be considered as replacements, sacking advisory committee members (notice the change in science chairs on the NAC), etc. And with the soon-to-be-announced new MSL cost overruns and technical problems (possible bad batch of Titanium used and bad arm actuators) someone needs to get fingered as being at fault.

Given Charlie Bolden's personal code of conduct and the gentlemanly way that he seems to treat absolutely everyone he encounters, one has to wonder how long he is going to put up with this sort of "inside Washington" behavior - once word of it gets back to him. Stay tuned.

Ares 1-Y is Toast

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Pull the plug on Ares, editorial, Orlando Sentinel

"But even if the station gets a five-year extension, as it should, Ares I would be available to fly there for just three years under the best-case scenario envisioned by the Augustine committee. NASA has projected that developing Ares I and a crew capsule to accompany it will cost $35 billion, but the Government Accountability Office came up with an estimate of $49 billion. The Augustine committee predicted that the entire Constellation program, which includes Ares I, Ares V, the Orion capsule and the Altair lunar lander, will run $45 billion over budget."

NASA Blog: Constellation: Managers reevaluating Ares I-Y flight test

"Constellation program managers agreed to reevaluate the proposed Ares I-Y flight test during an Oct. 30 Control Board and plan to take the decision up the ladder to management at NASA Headquarters soon. The decision could result in the removal of the Ares I-Y flight from the manifest in order to better align test flights with evolving program objectives."

Keith's 29 October note: Given that the Constellation Program's Control Board decided last Friday to recommend canceling Ares 1-Y, reality seems to be descending upon the Ares 1 effort - despite the spin Jeff Hanley is trying to put on it.

NASA Drops Ares I-Y Flight-test, Aviation Week

"Hanley said on Nov. 3 he has recommended to NASA headquarters that the Ares I-Y test planned for March 2014 be canceled because the J-2X engine needed to propel the upper stage won't be ready in time to support that test date. The problem is money, he said. "Because of the cost-constrained environment that we've been in, I just cannot get an engine to that vehicle soon enough," Hanley said."

China’s View on Space

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China general sees military space race, Financial Times

"China's air force chief has called military competition in space "inevitable", a departure from Beijing's past insistence that it is not pursuing space programmes for military purposes."

China's PLA eyes future in space, air: air force commander, Xinhua

"Calling militarization in the space and in air "a threat to the mankind," Xu said China must develop a strong force in the two arenas in order to face challenges of that threat. "Only power could protect peace," the 59-year-old air force commander said in an interview with Xinhua, 10 days ahead of 60th anniversary of the founding of the PLA air force. Superiority in space and in air would mean, to a certain extent, superiority over the land and the oceans, Xu said."

Milsat Coordination and Tracking Issues

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Pentagon eyes crash analysis on 1,300 satellites, Reuters

"The U.S. military said on Tuesday it is now tracking 800 maneuverable satellites on a daily basis for possible collisions and expects to add 500 more non-maneuvering satellites by year's end."

Defense Acquisitions: Challenges in Aligning Space System Components, GAO

"Satellites, ground control systems, and user terminals in most of DOD's major space system acquisitions are not optimally aligned, leading to underutilized satellites and limited capability provided to the warfighter. Of the eight major space system acquisitions we studied, three systems anticipated that their satellites will be launched well before their associated ground control systems are fully capable of operating on-orbit capabilities."

Here Come The Tricorders – Update

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NASA Ames Scientist to Demonstrate Cell Phone Chemical Sensor

"News media are invited to see a demonstration of first-generation laboratory prototypes of new technology that would bring chemical sensing capabilities to cell phones on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009. Jing Li has developed a device, designed to be plugged in to an iPhone, which collects sensor data and sends it to another phone or a computer via telephone communication network or Wi-Fi."

Keith's 29 October note: Well, it has been two days and I have not seen any stories on this. When I sent several requests to ARC PAO requesting the press release one would normally expect to follow-up such a media advisory - as well as images and video from the demonstration - I got nothing. Why put a media advisory out about something sexy and cool like this if you are not willing to do the work to follow up media interest?

Keith's 3 Nov note: I made multiple requests of NASA ARC for copies of standard 300 dpi copies images that show this new ARC device - the sort that you'd reguarly get with press releases (which of course ARC did not issue either). These are the sort of images used to make the large images common on many blogs today. At first ARC PAO did not reply. Then they told me that these little images [1][2] were the highest resolution ones they had (3.1 inches at 72 dpi). Then they said that the images had to be re-shot because this was the best that the scientist's camera could do. Really? For a PAO operation located in the middle of Silicon Valley, ARC PAO seems to be clueless as to how high tech media works just outside the ARC security gate. If you come up with a new gadget, people want to SEE the gadget - not teeny tiny images with no details. Indeed, some media may actually want to print these images.

This is the sort of image, at legible resolution, that NASA ARC PAO should be putting out - given that I only had a little low-res image, this is the best that I can do. This article at Gizmodo is the sort that someone could have written about this iPhone sensor 1. If ARC PAO actually put a press release out and 2. provided suitable media for publishers to use.

Another lost opportunity.

Data Acquisition Modules

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{ntbnoad}IOtech, Cleveland, OH, has released the 6000 Series data acquisition modules with
Encore software. The 6220 is a 12-channel, simultaneously sampled, 16-bit voltage
input module that features a 100-kHz per channel sample rate. It includes BNC
connectors for signal connection. The 6224 is a 12-channel, simultaneously sampled
strain gage input module with 24-bit resolution, and a 50-kHz per A/D, per channel
rate. It is 100 percent software-programmable, enabling easy strain setup and configuration.
Each module also includes 8 digital I/O channels. Systems can be used in a
central location or in distributed or remote configurations. Multiple modules can be
combined to build expandable, mixed-signal systems. The Encore interactive measurement
software features an intuitive user interface that allows users to configure
hardware, develop and customize data displays, analyze data with built-in analysis
tools, and develop comprehensive test reports.

For Free Info Visit http://info.hotims.com/22920-120

Dr. Scott Barthelmy, Research Scientist, Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

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Dr. Scott Barthelmy is the principal investigator for the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), a sophisticated instrument that detects and precisely locates elusive gamma-ray bursts in the universe. Developed as part of NASA’s Swift mission, the instrument technology is now being considered for a variety of homeland security applications because of its ability to pinpoint and identify nuclear materials – both legal and illegal – in transit or storage. Dr. Barthelmy also created the Gamma-Ray Bursts Coordinates Network (GCN) to distribute data collected on gamma-ray bursts to researchers throughout the world in real time.

Laser Tracker Ensures Accurate Alignment of Ares I Components

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FARO® Laser Tracker
FARO Technologies
Lake Mary, FL
800-736-0234
http://www.faro.com

Making its first flights to the International Space Station by the middle of the
next decade, the Orion crew exploration
vehicle is part of the Constellation
Program, which will send human explorers
back to the Moon, and then to Mars
and other destinations in the solar system.
Future astronauts will ride into orbit on
Ares I, Orion’s launch vehicle, which uses
a single, five-segment solid rocket booster.
NASA’s first test flight, called Ares I-X, will
provide NASA with an early opportunity
to test and prove the hardware, facilities,
and ground operations associated with
the Ares I.

Dual Cryogenic Capacitive Density Sensor

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A dual cryogenic capacitive density
sensor has been developed. The device
contains capacitive sensors that monitor
two-phase cryogenic flow density to within
±1% accuracy, which, if temperature
were known, could be used to determine
the ratio of liquid to gas in the line. Two
of these density sensors, located a known
distance apart, comprise the sensor, providing
some information on the velocity
of the flow.

Advanced Technologies Will Help Hubble Yield More Remarkable Discoveries

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The fourth servicing mission (SM-4)
for the Hubble Space Telescope
(HST) offered an impressive and
unprecedented set of advanced technologies
that may yield the most remarkable
discoveries and imaging to date of
Earth, the solar system, and beyond. The
mission was, according to Deputy
Associate Director for the HST
Development Project Frank Cepollina,
“the most complicated mission – from a
servicing perspective – that NASA has
ever flown.”

Dr. Gerard Holzmann, Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Reliable Software, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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After a 23 year career at Bell Labs, Dr. Gerard Holzmann joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2003 to help create the Laboratory for Reliable Software (LaRS), which he currently manages. Dr. Holzmann is credited with inventing the SPIN model checker for distributed software systems and a Method and Apparatus for Testing Event Driven Software, as well as authoring The Power of 10: Rules for Developing Safety Critical Code, and the groundbreaking book Beyond Photography – The Digital Darkroom.

NASA Research Will Help Aircraft Avoid Ocean Storms and Turbulence

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NASA is funding the development of a prototype system to
provide aircraft with updates about severe storms and turbulence
as they fly across remote ocean regions. Scientists at
the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in
Boulder, CO — in partnership with the
University of Wisconsin — are developing
a system that combines satellite data
and computer weather models with artificial
intelligence techniques.

NASA Awards 2008 Software of the Year

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NASA’s Glenn Research Center
(Cleveland, OH) and Boeing
employees have won the 2008 NASA
Software of the Year Award for the development
of a general-purpose program
used to perform trajectory optimization
and performance studies for a wide variety
of vehicles including aircraft, rockets,
satellites, and interplanetary vehicles.
The Software of the Year Award recognizes
developers of exceptional software
created for or by NASA and owned
by NASA.

2D Laser Profiling Scanner for Detecting Targets

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The Radiometric Sensor Development
and Applications Team of the Sensors
and Electron Devices Directorate
(SEDD) at the U.S. Army Research
Laboratory (ARL) has developed a 2D
laser profiling scanner system to study its
operational characteristics, performance,
and effectiveness in detecting targets in
the battlefield and homeland security
environments. A profiling scanner provides
output images that reveal the size,
height, and outline or shape of an object.
This information can be useful in a wide
range of applications, ranging from simple
intrusion detection, to monitoring of
parts during a manufacturing process for
quality control purposes.

NASA Energy Concept Could Harness the Power of Ocean Waves

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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) researchers who
developed a new way to power robotic underwater vehicles
believe a spin-off technology could help convert ocean energy
into electrical energy on a much larger scale. The researchers
hope that clean, renewable energy produced from the motion
of the ocean and rivers could potentially meet an important
part of the world’s demand for electricity.