NASA Sends Shuttle Discovery to Pad For Last Time

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn, Ap Aerospace Writer – Mon Sep 20, 7:57 pm ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Discovery is headed to the launch pad for the last time.

NASA moved Discovery out of its hangar Monday night. The 3 1/2-mile trip to the pad was bittersweet for the space agency, which has only two shuttle missions remaining.

Discovery is set to lift off Nov. 1 for the International Space Station. Endeavour will follow in February to wrap up 30 years of shuttle flight.

Scores of shuttle workers and their families gathered to watch Discovery take its last ride to the pad atop a giant transporter.

Several hundred contract employees will lose their jobs Oct. 1 in a continuing wave of layoffs. NASA's future is uncertain because of disagreement in Washington over the next rocketships.

Seats On Boeing Spaceships Could Go Up For Sale

By JOSHUA FREED, AP Business Writer Joshua Freed, AP Business Writer – Wed Sep 15, 5:44 pm ET

MINNEAPOLIS – Boeing and a space tourism company announced a deal on Wednesday to sell tickets on rocket rides to the International Space Station. Now Boeing just has to build a spaceship.

Space Adventures Ltd. has already been selling seats aboard the Russian-built Soyuz spaceship. Its last passenger was Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, who paid $35 million for a 10-day trip.

Now, Boeing says Space Adventures will sell seats on its planned CST-100, which would carry seven people. NASA has been encouraging aerospace companies like Boeing to develop spaceships that can carry government-sponsored astronauts as well as paying tourists to the space station. The idea is to spread around the cost of NASA missions while also boosting privately funded space efforts.

Big questions remain. Congressional funding isn't assured. And Boeing and Space Adventures will have competition from a California company called SpaceX, which is also seeking NASA work for space station missions.

So far, seven customers have ridden on eight flights through Spacecraft Adventures.

The trips will be for millionaires, at least for now. Boeing and Space Adventures executives didn't have pricing details, but said on a conference call that prices would be "competitive" with the cost for a flight on the Soyuz craft.

The more people fly to space, the sooner the cost will come down, said Eric Anderson, co-founder and chairman of Space Adventures. He said people ask him when it will cost, say, $40,000, or $4,000, instead of close to $40 million.

"I don't know," he said, "but I know that it'll never be $40,000, or $4,000, if it doesn't start off at $40 million. ... We'll get there. Until launch technology radically changes, the price is still going to be quite expensive."

Boeing's CST-100 is a reusable capsule with a round bottom and pointed top that, from the outside, bears some resemblance to the Apollo capsules launched beginning in the 1960s. Boeing is doing design and testing work now, and hopes to have the craft ready in 2015.

Boeing plans to build two at first, which would be used for testing and then refurbished for missions. Each spaceship would need about six months in between flights to have its heat shield restored and its systems tested, said John Elbon, vice president and program manager for Boeing Commercial Crew Transportation Systems.

"Together we can open space to more people, and expand a new market, and I find that terribly exciting," said Brewster Shaw, a former astronaut and vice president and general manager of Boeing's Space Exploration division.

Anderson, of Space Adventures, said he's aiming to reduce the months of training that precede flights on the Soyuz craft, which includes Russian language training that won't be needed on the U.S.-led flights. He said shorter training will encourage more people to sign up, while still being sufficient to get them ready for the flight.

He objected to the notion that the people who accompany government-sponsored astronauts are "tourists."

"It's not the case that a bunch of people show up to the station in their flowered T-shirts with sunglasses on," he said. "I think this is much more about private citizens who are opening the frontier alongside government space explorers, and are doing so in a very serious fashion with lots of serious work behind it."

Still, the Cirque du Soleil founder wore a red clown nose on his trip.

Boeing Co. shares fell 3 cents to close at $62.73.

Spaceport Seeks Tour Contractor

Tue Jul 13, 9:38 am ET
LAS CRUCES, N.M. –

The New Mexico Spaceport Authority is seeking proposals for a contractor to provide regular sightseeing tours of the spaceport facilities and construction site.

Officials hope to start regular weekend tours as early as Sept. 1.

The so-called "Hard Hat Tours" will be conducted every Friday, Saturday and Sunday with clearly defined operational schedules.

Spaceport director Rick Homans says the tours will offer visitors an opportunity to watch as Spaceport America takes shape. Construction is continuing at the spaceport site, 40 miles north of Las Cruces.

Millionaire Space Tourist Wants to Go Back

Clara Moskowitz Senior Writer
SPACE.com – Wed Jun 9, 10:15 am ET


The third private citizen to fly in space, American millionaire Gregory Olsen, says he's excited about the future of space travel — especially if it means he might have another chance to fly.

Olsen visited the International Space Station in October 2005 as a paying passenger aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. His ticket, which cost about $20 million at the time, was brokered with the Russian Federal Space Agency through the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures.

A scientist and entrepreneur, Olsen founded the Princeton, New Jersey-based optics firm Sensors Unlimited. The sale of that company in 2000 largely financed his later space trip. Olsen recounts his long road to space in a new memoir, "By Any Means Necessary," published by his new company, GHO Ventures.

"I'd go in a heartbeat," Olsen said of a second space visit. Of particular interest would be an orbital trip around the moon on a Soyuz spacecraft. No space tourist has yet traveled beyond low-Earth orbit, but Space Adventures is working on offering such an excursion.

"I just have to sell another company to afford the trip", Olsen said. And private space travel to orbit may be getting more expensive.

Pricier Space Seats

With private seats for orbital trips to the space station in short supply and increased production demands, the price for flights similar to Olsen's voyage are now going for a steeper price.

The seventh space tourist to fly, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, paid a reported $35 million for his 12-day trip to space in October 2009. "It looks like I got a bargain," Olsen told SPACE.com.

For now, orbital spaceflights have been the bulk of space tourism offerings, though a number of private companies are hoping to offer suborbital joy rides in the next few years at a cost of up to $200,000 or so.

If Olsen does manage to make it back to orbit, Olsen won't be the first repeat customer for Space Adventures. The fifth-ever space tourist, American billionaire Charles Simonyi, revisited the space station on a second mission in March 2009, two years after his first flight. Both trips were booked through Space Adventures. Simonyi paid $35 million for his second space tourist trek. His first trip in 2007 cost about $25 million.

Private Space Travel's Bright Future

Olsen said he is eager to see how the future of U.S. human spaceflight plays out. President Barack Obama has proposed a new direction for NASA in which commercial companies take the lead in ferrying astronauts to low-Earth orbit, while the space agency focuses on going to an asteroid and to Mars.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), a California-based company among the first tapped to provide commercial space cargo delivery services for NASA, successfully launched the first of its new private rockets called Falcon 9 into orbit on Friday. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets are built to launch the company's capsule-shaped Dragon vehicles into space on unmanned cargo missions, though the company hopes to modify them to carry people as well.

"I'm really glad they're pushing for the commercialization," Olsen said.

He could easily envision a commercial taxi service going to the International Space Station, and said he would like to see the industry take things even further.

"I'm a moon fan," he said. "This mission that Space Adventures is planning that's all possible. The moon could eventually go to the private sector too."

The spaceflyer said he reminisces about his space journey almost every day. "It'll be five years in October and not a day goes by when I don't think about it."

The experience was truly life-changing, he added. "When you fly over the Earth, there's no sign of life," Olsen said. "There's nothing to indicate that there's anything going on there occasional jet trails, but other than that it just looks serene, perfect. When I was up there I just said, 'Wow, I'm the luckiest guy in the world to be able to see this.' "

Japanese Solar Sail Headed For Venus and Beyond

Jeremy Hsu SPACE.com Senior Writer
space.com – Sun May 16, 1:00 pm ET

An ambitious solar sail mission designed by Japan is poised for launch tomorrow could become the first successful mission powered solely by sunlight, but that's not all. The spacecraft is also aimed at Venus and beyond, and could pave the way for a future hybrid space engine.

The solar sail will hitch a ride aboard an H-2A rocket slated for launch on Monday (Tuesday local time) from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center. That rocket carries the main mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Venus Climate Orbiter called Akatsuki — which means "Dawn" in Japanese.

But only Akatsuki has a planned meet-up with Venus, even though the sail — called Ikaros (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) — will also launch along the same trajectory toward the mysterious planet.

"This will be the world's first solar powered sail craft employing both photon propulsion and thin film solar power generation during its interplanetary cruise," said a JAXA mission website.

Venus would mark just a six-month pit stop for the solar sail during a three-year trek toward the far side of the sun.

"To me it's a very bold activity to be conducting a technology test like this on an interplanetary mission," said Louis Friedman, an executive director of the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif. "I think it shows a lot of foresight on their part."

Past solar sail demonstrations have fallen short of achieving actual solar-propelled spaceflight, but that certainly has not stopped JAXA from planning an ambitious technological debut. Even Ikaros itself represents just a stepping stone to a "hybrid" space engine that incorporates solar sail technology, mission planners have said.


Space Hybrid Vehicle

The kite-shaped Ikaros relies upon the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, but it also carries thin film solar cells built within its sail. Such cells could generate electricity from the same sunlight pushing the solar sail along.

That won't do much good by itself for a solar sail without an engine. But JAXA hopes that the power-gathering demonstration could eventually lead to spacecraft with ion-propulsion engines that draw electricity from solar cells and also take advantage of solar sail propulsion — a hybrid propulsion system.

"They want to ultimately have a solar electric [ion propulsion] and solar sail vehicle that would be used for outer planetary missions," Friedman told SPACE.com.

Yet the history of solar sail tests presents a sobering reminder of the troubles that can arise. The California-based Planetary Society attempted to fly its Cosmos-1 solar sail in 2005, but lost their prototype because of a Russian rocket malfunction. NASA's NanoSail-D was also lost in the third failed flight of SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket in 2008.

A British shoebox-sized mission slated for launch next year might also test solar sail propulsion, but would mainly test the sails as brakes for taking defunct satellites down.

Japan did deploy a solar sail from a sounding rocket in 2004, but did not actually attempt to demonstrate controlled flight. If that represented the dry run, then Ikaros comes as the real deal.


True Solar Sailing

Ikaros is designed to unfurl its sail during its first stage by taking advantage of its spinning momentum, and then actively deploying the rest of the way during a second stage.

"The membrane is deployed, and kept flat, by its spinning motion," the JASA mission website stated. "Four masses are attached to the four tips of the membrane in order to facilitate deployment."

The Planetary Society still has ambitions to someday launch a solar sail mission into deep space, but its first planned solar sail test would involve a much smaller spacecraft than Ikaros, which stretches almost 66 feet (20 meters) at the diagonal of its square sail.

A refitted NASA solar sail might weigh a little less than 10 pounds (4.5 kg) compared to the 700-pound (315 kg) Ikaros.

The Planetary Society would aim first for launch to low-Earth orbit, before eventually launching a second mission that lasted perhaps weeks. Only the third mission would try for interplanetary traveler status, Freidman said.

For now, Friedman and the Planetary Society will share technological information and results from the JAXA mission, and keep an eye on their own hopes for the future.

"We wish we were first, of course, but it doesn't matter," Friedman said. "It's about advancing solar sail technology."

Moon Vets Say Obama's NASA Cuts Would Ground U.S.

By Todd Halvorson, Florida Today

Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong at a "Legends of Aerospace" event in New York City last March.

CAPE CANAVERAL — President Obama's plans for NASA could be "devastating" to the U.S. space program and "destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature," three legendary astronauts said in a letter Tuesday.

READ THE LETTER

Neil Armstrong, who rarely makes public comments, was the first human to set foot on the moon. Jim Lovell commanded the famous Apollo 13 flight, an aborted moon mission. And Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan remains the last human to have walked on the lunar surface.

In statements e-mailed to the Associated Press and NBC, Armstrong and other astronauts took exception with Obama's plan to cancel NASA's return-to-the-moon program, dubbed Project Constellation.

Armstrong, in an e-mail to the AP, said he had "substantial reservations." More than two dozen Apollo-era veterans, including Lovell and Cernan, signed another letter Monday calling the plan a "misguided proposal that forces NASA out of human space operations for the foreseeable future."

The statements came days before Obama is to visit Kennedy Space Center on Thursday to explain his vision for NASA.

READ HIGHLIGHTS OF SPEECH

Not all former astronauts have come out against the plan. Armstrong's crewmate Buzz Aldrin, the second man to stand on the moon, has endorsed Obama's plan, which includes investing $6 billion to develop commercial space-taxi services for astronauts traveling to and from the International Space Station. Aldrin said the proposal will "allow us to again be pushing the boundaries to achieve new and challenging things beyond Earth."

The plan would also extend the space station operations through 2020. It would cancel Project Constellation and the Ares rockets, which NASA has been developing for six years at a cost of more than $9 billion. Obama would retain the Constellation project's Orion capsule. The capsule, which was to go to the moon, will instead be sent unoccupied to the International Space Station to stand by as an emergency vehicle to return astronauts home.

Administration officials told the AP that NASA will speed up development of a rocket that would have the power to blast crew and cargo far from Earth, although no destination has been chosen. The rocket would be ready to launch several years earlier than under the moon plan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to not detract from the presidential announcement.

The former astronauts said, "It appears that we will have wasted our current $10-plus-billion investment in Constellation. … Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downward slide to mediocrity."

Contributing: Associated Press

Russia raises price tag for giving US astronauts rides to space after shuttles get scuttled

Tue Apr 6, 6:51 PM

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The price for American astronauts to hitch a ride on a Russian spaceship is going sky high.

NASA on Tuesday signed a contract to pay $55.8 million per astronaut for six Americans to fly into space on Russian Soyuz capsules in 2013 and 2014. NASA needs to get rides on Russian rockets to the International Space Station because it plans to retire the space shuttle fleet later this year.

NASA now pays half as much, about $26.3 million per astronaut, when it uses Russian ships. NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the cost is going up because Russia has to build more capsules for the extra flights. NASA had already agreed to pay as much as $51 million a seat for flights in 2011 and 2012, before the latest increase.