Daily Archives: September 19, 2014

THE MISSION IS IN SIGHT
NASA is poised to announce the final phase of development and certification to provide safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the...

By: NASAKennedy

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THE MISSION IS IN SIGHT - Video

Time-lapse video shows view of earth from the international space station - Fly over planet at night

By: UNOFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEOS

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Time-lapse video shows view of earth from the international space station - Fly over planet at night - Video

Blue Dot: Three months of science in space
ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst gives an overview of some of the science he has performed during his Blue Dot mission on the International Space Station so far. From robotic surgery to vaccines...

By: European Space Agency, ESA

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Blue Dot: Three months of science in space - Video

International Space Station contact with Institut Florimont from ITU
ITU radioamateur station 4U1ITU facilitates radio contact with the International Space Station and Geneva school students Aim to inspire students to seek careers in science and technology....

By: ITU

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International Space Station contact with Institut Florimont from ITU - Video

Russia Spaced Out: NASA to end Kremlin space reliance and partner with Boeing and SpaceX
NASA has confirmed that America #39;s reliance on Russia for space travel will end. NASA will partner with private firms Boeing and SpaceX for sending people into space from 2017. Russia currently...

By: UKRAINE TODAY

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Russia Spaced Out: NASA to end Kremlin space reliance and partner with Boeing and SpaceX - Video

Dr. George Nelson: How best to use your neighborhood space station
The International Space Station has maintained a continuous human presence in space since November of 2000. Upon completion of the Space Station and the retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA #39;s...

By: GoogleTechTalks

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Dr. George Nelson: How best to use your neighborhood space station - Video

NASA cost estimates for operating the International Space Station through 2024 are "overly optimistic," the agency's inspector general reported Thursday, adding that the price of new U.S.-built space taxis likely will be higher than currently projected, exceeding the cost of flying aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA Inspector General Paul Martin also raised questions about NASA's ability to safely operate the lab complex through 2024, the current goal, unless engineers can develop ways to offset age-related solar array degradation; minimize equipment failures and get large replacement components to the lab in the absence of the space shuttle.

"While the ISS program is actively working to mitigate these risks, anticipating the correct amount of replacement parts and transporting them to the ISS present major challenges to extending station operations 10 or more years beyond its original expected service life," Martin concluded.

More troubling, perhaps, the OIG found that the "assumptions underlying the agency's budget projections for the ISS are overly optimistic and that its actual costs may be higher."

The report said NASA projects the space station budget will grow from $3 billion a year to nearly $4 billion by fiscal 2020. But the OIG found station costs rose 26 percent between fiscal 2011 and 2013 "and an average of 8 percent annually over the life of the program."

Much of the projected cost increase, the report said, was due to higher transportation costs.

"NASA's estimates for the cost of commercial crew transportation services expected to replace the Russian Soyuz are based on the cost of a Soyuz seat in FY 2016 -- $70.7 million -- per seat for a total cost of $283 million per mission for transporting four astronauts," the report said.

"However, the program's independent government cost estimates project significantly higher transportation costs when the agency transitions to contracts with commercial spaceflight companies."

NASA has relied on the three-seat Russian Soyuz to ferry astronauts to and from the space station since even before the shuttle's retirement in 2011. While the cost per seat is significant, it is far less than the cost of a seat on the much more powerful, and more expensive, space shuttle.

Even so, the lack of a U.S.-built ferry craft has rankled lawmakers and NASA managers alike.

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Space station cost projections questioned

It's hard to say what the creators of "Space Station 76" were aiming for. But whatever it was, they didn't achieve it.

A good cast and much proven comic talent on both sides of the camera are lost in space as director Jack Plotnick and his co-screenwriters Sam Pancake, Jennifer Elise Cox, Kali Rocha and Michael Stoyanov fail to nail a satisfying theme, narrative or purpose.

"Space Station 76" is set on a spaceship in, as the press notes clarify, "the future as it was imagined in the 1970s." But this is no "Star Trek"-type enterprise. Instead, we're on a kind of flying condo complex with several unhappy, dysfunctional married couples (Matt Bomer and Marisa Coughlan; Jerry O'Connell and Rocha) and several unhappy, dysfunctional singles (Patrick Wilson as the ship's surly, closeted gay captain and Liv Tyler as his kindly but lonely co-captain). There's also an equitable child, Sunshine (Kylie Rogers).

Why these folks are there is blurry: The story, such as it is, lacks context. It's also without much of a structure. The film is essentially just a string of scenes, snapshots in the lives of its main characters.

Oh, and an asteroid is hurtling toward the spaceship. Big whoop.

But, really, what are we watching? If the film is a spoof, what exactly is it spoofing? If it's the 1970s, the period tunes and trappings seem random. If it's a comedy, it's rarely funny except for the robot shrink, which is inspired. And if it's a drama which much of the movie plays like it doesn't feel as if it should be taken seriously.

There's a perhaps purposeful flatness to the overall tone; it's like cinematic Musak. To that end, the actors largely play things straight. But that only adds to the confusion.

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'Space Station 76'

MPAA rating: R for sexuality, graphic nudity, language, drug use.

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'Space Station 76' roams pointlessly