Monthly Archives: March 2017

The Trump administration has released a preliminary budget report titled, "America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again," and contained within are the new priorities for NASA in 2018. The report has NASA receiving a 0.8 percent decrease in funding from 2017, although the final budget will need to be approved by congress. The report highlights the Europa Clipper flyby mission, Mars 2020 rover, and development of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft as priorities for NASA. The report also identifies fostering private-public partnerships in space exploration as a priority moving forward.

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One space mission that got the ax is the Asteroid Redirect Mission, a proposed mission to send a spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid to grab a multi-ton boulder with robotic arms and then deposit it in orbit around the moon for further study. Another mission to get the kibosh is the proposed Europa lander. Both of these missions were in very early stages of planning and development, but they will likely not receive funding for fiscal year 2018. There is a NASA town hall meeting to discuss the viability of the proposed Europa landed scheduled for this Sunday, March 19.

What Happens When Trump Guts NASA's Earth Science

Two of the biggest proposed cuts are to the Earth Science program, which will have four missions terminated, and the NASA Office of Education, which will be eliminated outright. The four Earth science missions that are being canceled are the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3), the already-launched Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder Project, which is a proposed instrument to be launched to the International Space Station to measure how much solar radiation is reflected back from the Earth's surfacean important measurement for tracking the rate of climate change. Particularly glaring is the termination of the DSCOVR satellite, jointly operated by NASA and NOAA, which has already been launched into orbit and is currently conducting scientific research.

This animation features actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecraft's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) and telescope, and the Earth - one million miles away.

NASA/NOAA

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The budget also eliminates NASA's $115 million Office of Education, arguing that "The Office of Education has experienced significant challenges in implementing a NASA-wide education strategy and is performing functions that are duplicative of other parts of the agency." It may be that the Office of Education performs similar functions to other departments, but cutting the program will surely result in fewer scholarships, internships and student programs sponsored by NASA in the future.

An interesting area of focus in the report is additional funding "for eventual over-land commercial supersonic flights and safer, more efficient air travel with a strong program of aeronautics research." NASA is working with Lockheed Martin to build a Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) demonstrator aircraft to reduce the noise of sonic booms and supersonic flight. It is currently illegal for a commercial aircraft to fly at supersonic speeds over U.S. land because of the resulting noise pollution.

NASA to Build Supersonic Plane Without the Boom

The report also discusses restructuring plans to build a refueling and maintenance satellite that could autonomously perform satellite repairs and refuelings in orbit. Research is currently being conducted with NASA's Raven optical instrument on the ISS to develop the necessary technology for autonomous rendezvous and repairs by the future Restore-L satellite. It is not clear how the new budget will restructure this program.

You can download and read the entire NASA budget report here, starting on page 43:

Read more from the original source:

New NASA Budget Cuts Earth Science and Education, Boosts Space Exploration and Human Flight - Popular Mechanics

Might humans take a cue from bears and other hibernating animals and go to sleep for months or years at a time? While the technology is still in its infancy, a paper from the aerospace engineering company SpaceWorks Enterprises suggests that it could be possible in the next 10 to 20 years.

If a hibernation system can be made to work, it could potentially cut down on some of the risks of long-term space travel. We know from long-term missions on the International Space Station that bones and muscles weaken over time, although exercise has been shown to be a partial countermeasure. But there are other issues to consider, such as bringing along enough food, or keeping astronauts mentally engaged in a small space for months at a time.

If possible, hibernation would reduce these needs and keep astronauts healthy ahead of arriving to a destination like Mars, which would require a one-way journey of at least six months. Some science fiction stories suggest that hibernation could be used to prolong life on even longer voyages, such as the fictional voyage shown in the movie Passengers last year.

"Our concept is really inspired from a variety of sources, ranging from common depictions of long-term space travel in science fiction, to rare stories of human survival under extreme conditions (cold weather exposure, underwater submersion, airplane stowaways, etc.), and animal hibernation," said John Bradford, president and chief operating officer of SpaceWorks Enterprises and a co-author of the paper, in an e-mail to Seeker.

"In looking further into the question of hibernation, we identified a current medical practice of therapeutic hypothermia (or targeted temperature management, TTM) as a possible approach to sustaining long-term metabolic suppression and human stasis," he continued. "While we can't make humans actually hibernate, we believe we can mimic hibernation which is all we need."

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SpaceWorks has secured early-stage funding for hibernation under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, which aims to nurture "visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions with the creation of breakthroughs." NIAC offers funding for ideas that are beyond the reach of today's space technology but could be realized in a few decades.

SpaceWorks is creating the "technology roadmap" to figure out how to make hibernation possible, Bradford said. The first steps will be finding more funding for medical testing to do at home, potentially from foundations, private investors or government investors, such as NASA, the US Department of Defense, or the National Institutes of Health.

"Our technology is leveraging current medical treatments using mild hypothermia therapy and we plan to advance this capability to support prolonged metabolic suppression," Bradford said. "With only minor reductions in core body temperature, we can achieve significant reductions in metabolic rate."

"This approach opens up a variety of new options that can be introduced and applied that address major human spaceflight medical challenges and risk areas such as bone loss, muscle atrophy, increased intracranial pressure, and radiation damage," he added. "These new options range from enabling the habitat to carry additional radiation shielding due to other mass reductions, permitting the use of neuromuscular electrical stimulation to reduce muscle atrophy, and new approaches and configurations for inducing artificial gravity."

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The drawback is that we don't really understand how the human body responds to hibernation in space let alone to other known problems such as radiation. SpaceWorks is considering a range of other issues, including the increased risk of infection at catheter sites and the impact of long-term sedative use to suppress shivering as the body is being cooled.

SpaceWorks suggests that with the proper technology development and focus, the first human missions to Mars could employ some form of hibernation as soon as the early or mid-2030s. The company is considering a scenario where the passengers rotate between a few days of activity and a few weeks of hibernation during their 200-day voyage to Mars, with automated systems helping to monitor the spacecraft while the astronauts are out of commission.

The astronauts would work as usual on the Red Planet's surface, assuming a 500-day stay. Then they would again rotate between hibernation and activity during the 200-day voyage home.

"We believe human stasis represents one of the most promising approaches to solving the engineering and medical challenges of long-duration spaceflight," Bradford remarked. "System-level engineering analysis has indicated significant mass savings for both the space habitat and propulsive transfer stages. These savings are due to reductions in the pressurized volume, consumables, power, structures, and ancillary systems for the space habitat. The reduced mass then requires significantly less propellant to send the spacecraft to Mars (and back)."

The paper was presented at the 67 th International Astronautical Congress in Mexico last year.

WATCH: Why Astronauts Need This Cancer Shield in Space

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Hibernation for Deep-Space Exploration Could Happen Sooner Than You Imagined - Seeker

Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa, as seen by NASA's Galileo probe. The space agency plans to launch a mission to Europa in the 2020s, to assess the world's potential to host life.

President Donald Trump has a chance to make a historic mark on NASA science and the future of space exploration in general, experts say.

Many of NASA's high-profile robotic exploration missions are scheduled to end over the next few years, and there's not much in the pipeline to replace them, said Casey Dreier, director of space policy for The Planetary Society, a nonprofit organization thatseeks to advance space science and exploration.

"We're in this period where we really need to start rebuilding lots of science programs for the next generation," Dreier told Space.com. "This administration has the opportunity to basically help set the next decade of planetary and astrophysics exploration at NASA." [Watch: Bill Nye's Space Ideas for President Trump]

Some of NASA's biggest, boldest and most accomplished robotic missions will be saying goodbye soon.

For example, the $3.2 billion Cassini-Huygens mission, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, will end with an intentional death dive into the ringed planet's atmosphere this September. And the $1.1 billion Juno Jupiter mission is scheduled to perform a similar suicidal plunge in February 2018, after having studied the solar system's largest planet from orbit for more than 18 months.

The $700 million New Horizons mission, which captured the first-ever up-close photos of Pluto during its July 2015 flyby, will have a close encounter with a second faraway object, known as 2014 MU69, in January 2019. But the probe's current extended mission is scheduled to end two years after that, in 2021.

And the Curiosity rover, the centerpiece of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, has already been exploring the Red Planet for more than 4.5 years and can't be expected to chug along forever (even though its smaller cousin, the indefatigable Opportunity, has logged more than 13 years on Mars and is still going strong).

NASA has a few big-ticket items on the robotic docket in the relatively near future. For instance, the agency is eyeing an early-to-mid-2020s launch for Europa Clipper, a $2 billion mission that will assess the habitability of Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa during dozens of flybys. (Congress has also instructed the agency to send a lander to Europa; NASA is currently studying the best ways to do this.)

Furthermore, NASA plans to launch a $2 billion Mars rover in 2020, to search for signs of Red Planet life, and collect and store samples for future return to Earth. [NASA's 2020 Mars Rover Science Plan (Video)]

But a "true Mars program" would also involve the development of another Mars orbiter to help relay this future rover's data back to Earth, as well as a mission to bring the collected samples home, Dreier said.

"Those are nowhere to be seen, and that's a big worry on our part," he said.

And overall, NASA's astrophysics and planetary-science cupboard will be fairly bare in the near future if things don't change soon, Dreier added.

"It looks good right now, but the pipeline is diminished; the pipeline is narrow," he said. "We need to increase the pipeline of future missions, or else we're going to find ourselves bereft of exploration in the 2020s."

The Planetary Society has some ideas for how the Trump administration could best aid NASA's science and exploration work.

For example, in a video "open letter" posted Tuesday(March 14), Planetary Society CEO (and former TV "Science Guy") Bill Nye urged Trump to propose increasing NASA's budget by 5 percent every year for the next five years.

If enacted,such increases would boost the agency's current budget of about $19 billion to $24.2 billion by 2022. Such an outcome is not out of the realm of possibility, Dreier said.

"The last three years, Congress has provided more money for NASA than what the Obama administration requested," he said. "And in 2015, they gave it a 7 percent increase over the year before."

Nye also advised Trump to help strengthen and expand NASA's science portfolio. Specifically, The Planetary Society wants the president to propose allocating 30 percent of the NASA budget to the agency's Science Mission Directorate. (This recommendation and many others are detailed in a newly published Planetary Society white paper.)

Right now, it's unclear what Trump's space priorities will be. He still hasn't appointed a NASA administrator, and his public statements about space exploration consist primarily of two fleeting mentions: In his inaugural speech, the president said the nation stands "ready to unlock the mysteries of space," and in his first address to a joint session of Congress last month, he stated that "American footprints on distant worlds arenot too big a dream."

In addition, the president's advisers have said that the Trump administration aims to slash, or perhaps even eliminate, NASA's Earth-science program one of four divisions in the Science Mission Directorate.

Dreier said he hopes The Planetary Society's open letter and white paper will help show the Trump administration the value of all of NASA's space science and exploration work. Indeed, policies enacted during the next four to eight years could end up helping to answer some of humanity's biggest questions, Dreier and Nye said.

"If you double down and invest in a life-detection mission with the Europa lander, that can be a legacy: 'My administration promoted, funded and launched, or allowed to launch, this mission that maybe would discover life on another world,'" Dreier said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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How President Trump Can Shape Space Exploration - Space.com

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Kalpana Chawla, who was born on March 17, 1961, entered the hallowed records of space exploration history by becoming the first Indian woman in space. We revisit other such milestones on her 55th birth anniversary...

John Glenn is suited up, on January 20, 1962 in preparation for a simulated test during a training session before his 20 February 1962 NASA's Mercury program space flight aboard in the Mercury capsule Friendship 7 in which he became the first American to orbit the Earth. AFP PHOTO/NASA

First American to orbit earth and world's oldest astronaut: John Glenn became one of the 20th century's greatest explorers as the first American to orbit Earth and later as the world's oldest astronaut, and also had a long career as a U.S. senator. Prior to his death he was the last surviving member of the original seven American "Right Stuff" Mercury astronauts. Glenn's three laps around the world in the Friendship 7 capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, forged a powerful link between the former fighter pilot and the Kennedy-era quest to explore outer space as a "New Frontier."

This file photo taken on October 9, 1998 shows US astronaut and Senator John Glenn getting a hand from white room technicians moments before boarding the US space shuttle Discovery. / AFP PHOTO / NASA / HO

Thirty-six years after his maiden space voyage, John Glenn became America's first geriatric astronaut on Oct. 29, 1998. He was 77 when he blasted off as a mission specialist aboard the shuttle Discovery. He saw it as a blow to the stereotyping of the elderly.

Valentina Tereshkova poses before boarding Vostok 6, at Baikonur cosmodrome, 16 June 1963. Pic/AFP

First woman in space:Valentina Tereshkova travelled aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. Tereshkova was selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot the spacecraft. In order to join the Cosmonaut Corps, Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the Soviet Air Force and thus she also became the first civilian to fly in space.

Astronaut Kalpana Chawla works in the SPACEHAB Research Double Module, 18 Januaary 2003, aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.

First Indian woman in space:Kalpana Chawla is considered the first Indian woman and the first astronaut of Indian origin to go on a space mission. Chawla, who was born in Karnal, India moved to the United States in 1982 where she obtained a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984. She went on to earn a second Masters in 1986 and a PhD in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. She sadly killed in 2003 at the young age of 40 along with seven crew members in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Svetlana Savitskaya, during her historic space walk during the mission Soyuz T 12 to the Salyut 7 space station on July 25, 1984. Pic/AFP

Members of the Soyuz T 12 spaceship, left to right : Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Commander, Svetlana Savitskaya, Flight Engineer and Igor Volk Research Cosmonaut, pose at the Baikonur cosmodrome on July 18, 1984 before launch of the space mission to the Salyut 7 space station. Pic/AFP

First woman to walk in space:Svetlana Savitskaya, a former Soviet aviator and cosmonaut, who flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, became the first woman to perform a space walk on July 25, 1984. She conducted an EVA outside the Salyut 7 space station for 3 hours 35minutesduring which she cut and welded metals in space along with her colleague Vladimir Dzhanibekov.

Eileen Collins. Pic/AFP

First female pilot and commander of a Space Shuttle:Retired NASA astronaut and United States Air Force colonel Eileen Collins holds this honour. A former military instructor and test pilot, Collins was awarded several medals for her work. Colonel Collins has logged 38 days 8 hours and 10 minutes in outer space. Collins retired on May 1, 2006 to pursue private interests, including service as a board member of USAA.

A still from the 1965 Russian documentary 'Moon' showing Aleksei Leonov's EVA. Pic/YouTube

First person to walk in space:On March 18 in 1965, Russian cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes to perform extra vehicular activity (EVA). Leonov thus became the first person to walk in space.

First space tourist: Dennis Tito holds a special place in space age history for being the first person to fund his own trip into space. In mid-2001, he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visiting mission to the International Space Station. Tito was accepted by the Russian Federal Space Agency as a candidate for a commercial spaceflight. He met criticism from NASA before the launch, primarily from Daniel Goldin, at that time the Administrator of NASA, who considered it inappropriate for a tourist to take a ride into space.

Dennis Tito celebrates after his landing near the Kazakh town of Arkalyk (some 300 km from Astana), 06 May 2001. Pic/AFP

Tito arrived at the Johnson Space Center for additional training on the American portion of the ISS but was sent home because NASA officials were unwilling to train him. He joined the Soyuz TM-32 mission through an arrangement with space tourism company Space Adventures, Ltd on April 28, 2001, spending 7 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes in space and orbiting Earth 128 times.

Tito performed several scientific experiments in orbit that he said would be useful for his company and business and paid a reported $20 million for his trip. He was accompanied by Russian Cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin. Their spacecraft landed successfully back on earth near the Kazakh town of Arkalyk.

A screen grab from a demonstration video showing Laika inside a diagram of the Sputnik 2. Pic/YouTube

First animal to orbit the Earth: On 3 November 1957, the second-ever orbiting spacecraft carried the first animal into orbit, the dog Laika, launched aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2 spacecraft. She died during the flight, as was intended because the technology to return from orbit had not yet been developed.

First astronaut to wed in space: Twelves years ago on this day, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko tied the knot with girlfriend Yekaterina Dmitriyeva in a unique wedding ceremony where Dmitriyeva was on the ground and Malenchenko in space.

Yekaterina Dmitriyeva, the bride of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, poses with a life-sized cutout of her new husband at a press conference in Seabrook, Texas after the ceremony in August 10, 2003. Pic/AFP

This was the first ever wedding in outer space and occured during communication session between International Space Station (ISS) and a restaurant in Houston, Texas.

Yuri Gagarin, 27, (1934-68) wearing cosmonaut helmet, prepares to board Soviet Vostok I spaceship 12 April 1961 at Baikonur rockets launch pad shortly before its take-off. Pic/AFP

First human spaceflight: On 12th April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made one orbit around the Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft. It was launched by the Soviet space program. Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him and died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting crashed. He was 34.

Neil Armstrong. Pic/AFP

(Clockwise from left) Chicago welcoming the three Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong during his historic moon walk (1969) and getting a medal of honour from US President Jimmy Carter (1978)

First man on the moon: American Astronaut Neil Armstrong holds the distinction of being the first human being to set foot on the moon's surface. The missions were conducted by NASA as part of the Apollo program. Fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who was also a part of the program became the second man to accomplish this feat.

First living beings in space: Fruit flies were sent aboard a U.S.-launched V-2 rocket on 20 February 1947 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico in order to explore the effects of radiation exposure at high altitudes. The rocket reached 68 miles (109 km) in 3 minutes and 10 seconds, past both the U.S. Air Force 50-mile and the international 100 km definitions of the boundary of space. The Blossom capsule was ejected and successfully deployed its parachute and the flies were recovered alive.

First monkey in space: Before embarking on human spaceflight, animals of various species especially primates were sent on space missions. A rhesus monkey named Albert II became the first monkey in space on 14 June 1949, in a U.S.-launched V2, after the failure of the original Albert's mission on ascent. Albert I reached only 3039 miles (4863 km) altitude; Albert II reached about 83 miles (134 km) and died on impact after a parachute failure.

First dogs to make a sub-orbital flight: Dezik and Tsygan were the first dogs to make a sub-orbital flight on 22 July 1951. Both were recovered unharmed after travelling to a maximum altitude of 110 km. Dezik made another sub-orbital flight in September 1951 with a dog named Lisa, although neither survived. After Dezik's death Tsygan was adopted as a pet by Soviet physicist Anatoli Blagonravov.

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Kalpana Chawla's birth anniversary: List of firsts in space exploration history - Mid-Day