JAXA releases time-lapse of Reverse-Penumbra

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) successfully took moving images of the precise Earth rise moment when the Earth looked like a diamond ring using the onboard high definition camera (HDTV) of the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE) on February 10, 2009 (Japan Standard Time, all the following dates and times are Japan Standard Time.)

The moment came when a penumbral lunar eclipse occurred and sunlight was covered by the Earth. During that time, since the view of the Sun from the KAGUYA was mostly covered by the Earth, the KAGUYA observed that the Earth looked like a diamond ring. This is the first time that this phenomenon was shot from the Moon.

The images were shot by the HDTV onboard the KAGUYA for space-use developing by NHK. The moving images were received at JAXA and processed at NHK.

* A penumbral lunar eclipse is a phenomenon in which the Sun, Earth and Moon line up in tandem, hence the Moon is in the Earth's penumbra, or, when you look from the Moon, the Sun is partially covered by the Earth (partial eclipse.) During this phenomenon, the volume of sunlight to the Moon decreases, and the Moon's surface looks darker when you look at the Moon from the Earth. The KAGUYA, which circles around the Moon on its polar orbit, can witness this phenomenon only twice a year at most, thus it was very valuable to capture the moving images of the phenomenon from the KAGUYA.

The Earth by the HDTV (Tele-camera) during the penumbral lunar eclipse (480x270px) http://space.jaxa.jp/movie/20090218_kaguya_movie01_e.html

Figure 1 Image of the Earth by the HDTV (Tele-camera) during the penumbral lunar eclipse
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090218_kaguya_e.html#pict1

This still image was a cutout from the moving images taken by the onboard HDTV (tele-camera) of the KAGUYA (SELENE) on February 10, 2009.

The bright part on the lower right side is the Sun and the black area surrounded by the thin light ring is the Earth. The red dotted line shows the Moon's surface. Most of the Sun is covered by the Earth and the Moon's surface.

The contour of the Earth is shining in a ring shape because of the atmosphere. It scatters in the atmosphere in the periphery of the Earth, and a part of the sunlight reaches the Moon. The Earth's rim looks like a blue ring from the Moon since it is thought that the scattering sunlight with blue color light occurs easily because of the Earth's atmosphere.

Figure 2 Sequence images of the Earth by the HDTV (Tele-camera) during the penumbral lunar eclipse http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090218_kaguya_e.html#pict2

The KAGUYA captured the moving image of the Earth and the Sun gradually rising from the Moon's surface. The above sequence of images is a cutout from the moving image to show the rising process. The image on the far left is just after the Earth rise from the Moon's surface. It took about 47 seconds to film from the left to the right when the Sun came out from the Moon's surface and the diamond ring appeared.

Figure 3 Positions of the KAGUYA, Moon, Earth and Sun when images of the Earth-rise during the penumbral lunar eclipse http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090218_kaguya_e.html#pict3

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090218_kaguya_e.html

Public Affairs Department, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
JAXA WEB SITE : http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

Early approval for ISRO manned spaceflight

Preliminary Chandrayaan 1 Terrain Camera image
of Coulomb B rim, November 2008

Mayur Maheshwari reports to the Space Generation Group "The Planning Commission has approved the Rs 12,400-crore manned space project of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The mission is scheduled for launch by 2015.

"We had a good meeting. The general inference is that ISRO has done an expert job and it needs to be supported. The Planning Commission will support it," said Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, after a two-hour meeting last week with top ISRO scientists and Department of Space officials.

The manned mission would be executed in two phases, with an unmanned flight in 2013-14 scheduled for the first phase, and a two-man space mission to be launched in the second stage in 2014-15.

The Rs 12,400-core expenditure would include setting up long-term facilities required for the space mission including the vehicle and the infrastructure. K Radhakrishnan, Space Commission member and director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, said ISRO wanted to secure formal approval of the plan panel for the project to take off.

"We intend to put two persons in the vehicle and launch them into space for seven days in an orbit of 275 km," said K Radhakrishnan, Space Commission member and director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

As reported earlier, the manned mission will most likely be put into orbit by a manned-rated version the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).

Dual Expander Cycle Rocket Engine with an Intermediate Closed-cycle Heat Exchanger

A dual expander cycle (DEC) rocket engine with an intermediate closed-cycle heat exchanger is provided.

A conventional DEC rocket engine has a closed-cycle heat exchanger thermally coupled thereto. The heat exchanger utilizes heat extracted from the engine's fuel circuit to drive the engine's oxidizer turbomachinery.

Download the Study HERE.

Ionic Liquids as Hypergolic Fuels

After seminal work presented a decade ago, ionic liquids (IL) have now received a lot of attention as energetic materials for propellant applications.1–3 In bipropellant rocket engines, it is desirable to achieve ignition by means of a hypergolic reaction and therefore to minimize system complexity. Hypergolic bipropellants are defined as fuel and oxidizer combinations that, upon contact, chemically react and release enough heat to spontaneously ignite, eliminating the need for an additional ignition source. This also makes them highly reliable for spacecraft and satellites, which need to fire their rocket engines hundreds or even thousands of times during their lifetime.

Unfortunately, no reliable a priori method for prediction of hypergolicity for fuel-oxidizer pairs is available today. Here, we report the first ILs to manifest hypergolic ignition.

The initial “hunting for the hypergol”, as John Clark entitled one of the chapters in his book, Ignition!, took place mainly during World War II.4 At that time, such toxic systems as “CStoff” (a mixture of N2H4 ·H2O, methanol, and water) and others consisting of triethyl amine, aniline, toluidine, xylidine, and N-methyl aniline were developed. Today, environmental and health concerns are becoming more and more pressing in the propellant world. Nevertheless, hydrazine and its methylated derivatives are still the state-of-the-art fuels for bipropellant applications. Most of the problems handling hydrazine and its derivatives are related to their volatility, because they are carcinogenic vapor toxins. For these reasons, it is exceedingly attractive to replace hydrazine with ILs, which are regarded as paragons of environmental friendliness, green chemistry, and low vapor toxicity.

Download the Study HERE.

Method and associated apparatus for capturing, servicing and de-orbiting earth satellites using robotics

This invention is a method and supporting apparatus for autonomously capturing, servicing and de-orbiting a free-flying spacecraft, such as a satellite, using robotics.

The capture of the spacecraft includes the steps of optically seeking and ranging the satellite using LIDAR; and matching tumble rates, rendezvousing and berthing with the satellite. Servicing of the spacecraft may be done using supervised autonomy, which is allowing a robot to execute a sequence of instructions without intervention from a remote human-occupied location. These instructions may be packaged at the remote station in a script and uplinked to the robot for execution upon remote command giving authority to proceed. Alternately, the instructions may be generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) logic on-board the robot.

In either case, the remote operator maintains the ability to abort an instruction or script at any time, as well as the ability to intervene using manual override to teleoperate the robot.In one embodiment, a vehicle used for carrying out the method of this invention comprises an ejection module, which includes the robot, and a de-orbit module. Once servicing is completed by the robot, the ejection module separates from the de-orbit module, leaving the de-orbit module attached to the satellite for de-orbiting the same at a future time. Upon separation, the ejection module can either de-orbit itself or rendezvous with another satellite for servicing.

The ability to de-orbit a spacecraft further allows the opportunity to direct the landing of the spent satellite in a safe location away from population centers, such as the ocean.

Download the Study HERE.

New ablation shield design patented

A convex shell structure for enhanced aerodynamic performance and/or reduced heat transfer requirements for a space vehicle that re-enters an atmosphere. The structure has a fore-body, an aft-body, a longitudinal axis and a transverse cross sectional shape, projected on a plane containing the longitudinal axis, that includes: first and second linear segments, smoothly joined at a first end of each the first and second linear segments to an end of a third linear segment by respective first and second curvilinear segments; and a fourth linear segment, joined to a second end of each of the first and second segments by curvilinear segments, including first and second ellipses having unequal ellipse parameters. The cross sectional shape is non-symmetric about the longitudinal axis. The fourth linear segment can be replaced by a sum of one or more polynomials, trigonometric functions or other functions satisfying certain constraints.

Comparisons with Apollo HERE.

LCROSS shepherd arrives at the Cape

Northrum Grumman's LCROSS Shepherd vehicles, that will guide, record, and follow the Centaur impactor into it's eventual target, while hundreds of thousands peer through devices, both passive and amplified a quarter million miles away, has arrived at Kennedy Space Center, shown here at the Astrotech payload processing facility. After mating with it's co-passenger, the equally eagerly anticipated Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter, the Atlas-Centaur boost still has an official launch opportunity no earlier than April 24.

Few of von Braun's team are left to tell the story

KENNETH KESNER
The Huntsville Times

Archivists work to save papers and recordings

Even rocket men can't outrace the clock.

With the passing of Konrad Dannenberg last week, only a few members of Wernher von Braun's original team of German rocket scientists are still alive.

Hans Fichtner, Dieter Grau, Heinz Hilten, Oscar Holderer and Walter Jacobi are now approaching 100. But at the end of World War II, they were among the 118 young men developing the German rocket program who surrendered to the U.S. Army in "Operation Paperclip."

They came to work in the United States missile program and, later, helped make Huntsville the Rocket City.

The accomplishments of the von Braun team members here - especially the landing of man on the moon - will live on as part of history. Their individual achievements are also recorded in the thousands of patents they were awarded and technical articles they published over the decades.

And librarians and historians in Huntsville are working to make sure the papers, photographs, recordings and memories of these space pioneers and their years of work here, at the nucleus of the U.S. space program, are available for the generations to come.

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is the well-known home of many von Braun manuscripts and mementos, but archivist Irene Willhite said the center has also been collecting material from members of his team.

Read the story HERE.

Sooners in Space

Because I owe several bloodlines, and most of those who share my last name, with Oklahoma, by way of both voluntary emigration and forced marches (like the Trail of Tears, on my mother's side), I would be remiss not to join Enid News and Eagle in spotlighting what was probably filler, in their printed edition. It is a list of Oklahoma's sons and daughters who have traveled into Earth orbit.

(I've actually met General Stafford, which was an unexpected treat. It was on Capitol Hill when he attended a reception for my one-time employer, the majority leader of the House. Though I was much younger, I was suddenly fifteen years younger and a ten-year-old in the unseemly casual presence of one of my superheroes. I had no idea he had long been a friend of my father's, just as was Mike Collins, Frank Borman and Scott Crossfield.

Few remember "almost," and as the final dress rehearsal for the first Moon landing, General Stafford had piloted the Apollo 10 lunar module to the edge of terminal descent over the Moon, perhaps nine miles above the surface before jettisoning the descent stage and firing the ascent stage back into lunar orbit and an eventual rendezvous with the command module. He and lunar module pilot Captain Gene Cernan became a couple of almosts. General Stafford has the distinction of being the man who came closest to landing on the Moon without ever setting foot there. His companion, of course, would eventually lost this distinction by commanding Apollo 17 into its delicate landing at Taurus-Littrow three years later. (The other among the almosts is perhaps the most poignant story of Jim Lovell, who with Borman and Bill Anders, became the first Humans to visit the Moon's vicinity and, as commander of Apollo 13, of course would barely survive the free-return trajectory using the lifeboat of a recast lunar module he did not have with him on Apollo 8).

When Stafford and Cernan dropped the descent stage and fired up the ascent stage, after hovering for a brief moment as dead weight in freefall over the Moon below, those of us paying attention on Earth had our teeth set on edge when the crew experienced a violent shaking, what Stafford characterized as "wild gyrations" before smoothing out its boost back to low lunar orbit.

"I don't know what the hell that was," Stafford was heard to say, on the Big Loop, literally shaken. A few people were later upset, though far more complained when Borman, Lovell and Anders read from Genesis, from lunar orbit, on-board Apollo 8, Christmas Eve 1968.

So, at the reception, catching General Stafford alone, in his Full Bird U.S. Air Force uniform, I introduced myself not as a congressional aide but as a formally younger fan who thanked him for his service, forcefully remembered his command of Apollo 10, and of Apollo-Soyuz in 1975, and said to him, when he was hanging over the Sea of Tranquility and experienced those "wild gyrations" I would have let fly with far more than just a few formally unprintable words.

His reaction was an inscrutable smile I would never forget. I worried for sometime whether I had irritated him somehow, and, of course, I probably had. Like all fans, I had remembered him for what was important to me, as though it were a shared intimacy between friends. Of course, it was nothing of the kind. Like all those of my heroes of the Apollo Era, all the work with Alexi Leonov, another of my heroes, preparing for Apollo-Soyuz, his work on Gemini, the chance at experiencing far more than the Gap, then still underway, between his last mission and the long-delayed Shuttle, there was other things on his mind than being remembered by some political hack on the Hill for a single moment of being an "almost," which was certainly an experience only he and Captain Cernan had ever really "shared."

Television shrinks life to the size of the field of view through a keyhole and creates false familiarity. And if familiarity breeds contempt, then it must in part be contempt, in a way, all by itself.

And here, not far from my ancestors homelands, are Enid's catalog of Oklahomans who have traveled into Space.

So far there have been seven astronauts from Oklahoma who have made a major impact on the space program.

• JOHN B. HARRINGTON is of Chickasaw descent. Though born Sept. 14, 1958, in Wetumka, he grew up in Colorado Springs, Colo. He joined NASA in August 1996 and trained as a mission specialist. He flew the space shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station Nov. 23 to Dec. 7, 2002, and logged more than 330 hours in space including 3 EVAs (extra vehicular activities). He retired from the Navy and NASA in 2005.

• SHANNON LUCID was born in Shanghai, China, but grew up in Bethany and considers it to be home. She earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from the University of Oklahoma and master’s and doctorate degrees in biochemistry from OU. She served six months on Russia’s space station Mir and has made five space flights. She was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the only woman so far to receive that award.

• GORDON COOPER was born in Shawnee and was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. Before he joined NASA, he flew fighter planes in Germany and then served as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He flew the Mercury capsule in May 1963 and was on Gemini 5’s eight-day, 120-orbit flight. He died in 2004 at the age of 77.

• LT. GENERAL THOMAS P. STAFFORD was raised in Weatherford. He was selected as part of the second group of NASA astronauts in 1962. He served on Gemini VI in December 1965, Gemini IX in June 1966, Apollo 10 in May 1969, when he orbited the moon, and in 1975, on the Apollo-Soyuz test project.

• STEWART ROOSA grew up in Claremore and attended Oklahoma State University and the University of Arizona. He went to the moon on Apollo 14. While Edgar Mitchell and Alan Shepherd explored the surface of the moon, Roosa orbited it 33 times. He was the backup command module pilot for Apollo 16 and 17, and by crew rotation, would have been the pilot of Apollo 21 if it had not been cancelled. He died at age 61 of pancreatitis and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

• WILLIAM R. POGUE is of Choctaw descent and grew up in Okemah. He was pilot of Skylab 4, which was in space for 84 days and made 1,214 orbits of the earth.

• Last, but not least, is Enid’s own OWEN K. GARRIOTT. Garriott served 60 days onboard Skylab 3 in 1973 and 10 days aboard Spacelab 1 in 1983.

Hopefully there will be many more men and women from Oklahoma serving in space exploration in the years to come.

Information provided by Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center.

Grand Space Development strategy headlined by Edwin Aldrin

A "Unified Space Vision," headlined by Colonel Edwin Aldrin, and purported to be a comprehensive vision of "Sustainable Space Exploration and Space Development" has been posted to The Space Movement blog maintained by Karen Shea of Abandon Reality Photography, and it can be read in its entirety, HERE.

The Abstract to the "study" by Aldrin, Hsu and Cox is reproduced as follows:

"This paper presents and recommends a strategic and Unified Space Vision (USV) for comprehensive human space exploration and space development endeavors in the 21st century, through extensive analysis of complex space policy issues, to the new U.S. Administration, the NASA transition team and the broad domestic and international community. The proposed USV is a new paradigm of space policy that aims to rectify or replace the current Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), including its implementation plan, which has been pursued via the NASA Constellation program since its announcement by George Bush in early 2004. We strongly believe that if adequately adopted, the USV should serve the long-term economic, diplomatic and exploration interests of this nation and others around the globe."

On first read, the work is far too flattering of the new administration and overly critical of the Bush administration, which, for all its faults, was at least the first administration since John Kennedy's to make any real attempt to give a focus to NASA, albeit after the Columbia disaster.

In short, this study is stained with the dogma and poor understanding of basic American politics that one reads in a badly written political manifesto. It is hardly the science study it pretends to be, including in those areas where I found myself in strong agreement with the authors.

As such, it was perhaps thought necessary to take such an approach in covering such a broad field for an audience of policy makers. As a former policy maker, however, I know the secret to longevity is to be skeptical of your own press releases.

It was refreshing to read ideas regarding the institutional flaws, borne of NASA's history and orthodoxy, always in need of reform, and also of endorsements of simple but universally hoped for concepts as on-orbit cryogenic refueling depots, which seem simple enough but are difficult. and dangerous to build, unnecessarily.

The idea of Space Development fostered on a second track, while addressing ITAR concerns for NASA as that agency devotes itself to exploration is interesting.

That Space Travel by nations fosters peace has been long acknowledged, though it may not be as well-known in the present administration.

Then there's this particularly insulting part, under Part 2, Section 5, where we are taught, "The current thrust of the Bush VSE to return humans to the Moon (and to build a costly lunar post without international participation and support) lacks political resonance. The American public and its political constituency in the U.S. congress is largely uninterested in supporting such a costly Apollo-all-over-again national program: “Been there, done that” rules apply. As a result, after receiving less than adequate funding from the Administration that proposed it, the Bush Vision for Space Exploration is unlikely to get more support from any new Administration, much less a chance of getting continued support from an Administration (like President Obama’s) that is largely surrounded by visionaries and leaders with strategic and intellectual strength."

This paragraph is hardly worthy of Colonel Aldrin, as it reads as though written by a campaign volunteer.

Congress, not the President, is entrusted with the power of the purse, and NASA is (and always has been) a creature of Congress.

I cannot believe that Colonel Aldrin could have read the National Academies' Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon.

If he had, of course, it is unlikely he would have allowed his name to be attached to this dismissal of the essential role the Moon must play in the long-term future of Space travel, exploration, or its development (or whatever it is you want to call the long-term survival of the species).

It is certain, for example, that India, China and Russia are each aware their own future economic development beyond 2050 may well depend on harvesting lunar resources literally under Colonel Aldrin's feet forty years ago.

The Moon is the Rosetta Stone of the Solar System, and for many other reasons, all outlined in true scientific work, we have hardly scratched its surface. Colonel Aldrin may have "been there, done that," but most of us have not.

Finally, a tale-tell way of knowing when a writer is in the grip of even a mild case of Bush Derangement Syndrome is the repeated use of the former president's last name by itself, as an epithet. Thus, the final sentence in this part of the work is just plain intellectually insulting flattery, playing to supposed prejudices the Obama White House is certain to see through as though transparent.

Edwin Aldrin is my hero, God love him.

But, an otherwise fine piece of work, not without flaws, became unnecessarily divisive by his allowance of his name to be attached to the manifestly sophomoric flattery introduced in this paragraph.

(I'll take Dr. Schmitt's intellectual strength over Colonel Aldrin's any day of the week. But the wisest move is not to offer anyone that kind of choice. The last election is over, but there's going to be another one in just 21 months.)

Tuskegee Airman Breaks New Barriers – In Space

Col. Ralph Smith, president of the Western Region of the Tuskegee Airmen, left, and Le Roy Gillead. - Doug Graham Wall St. Journal

By Andy Pasztor

LOS ANGELES – Four months shy of his 90th birthday, Le Roy Gillead is about to become an improbable player in the latest space race.

XCOR Aerospace, a startup based in Mojave, Ca., is offering Mr, Gillead, a World War II aviator who was a member of the fabled Tuskegee Airmen, a free trip to briefly experience the thrill of zero gravity. XCOR made the announcement that Mr. Gillead would be among its first passengers during a ceremony Saturday honoring the Tuskegee group of pioneering African American aviators.

Read the story HERE.

SpaceX engine test touches off fire

Falcon 9 stage, cowling down

SpaceX is conducting an internal investigation over what caused a fuel fire at its McGregor testing facility Thursday night. The fire started around 8 p.m. Thursday during routine testing of a Merlin 1 C rocket engine, said SpaceX Spokeswoman Lauren Dreyer.

Hat tip to Parabolic Arc HERE.

Anniversary of Ranger 8

Candidate for the most heavily traveled location on the Moon so far, the south-southwest corner of the Sea of Tranquillity as seen by the HDTV camera on-board the lunar orbiter KAGUYA in 2008. Ranger 8 arrived first, impacting north of the crater subsequently named after Neil Armstrong, followed by Surveyor 5 in September 1967 and finally by Armstrong and Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin forty years ago this July.

"Lunar Mark" Tillotson, continuing his daily Today in Astronomy celebration of the IYA2009, today highlights February 20 as the 44th anniversary of the arrival of Ranger 8, impacting the southwest Mare Tranquillitatis 73 kilometers northeast of the eventual landing site of Apollo 11, four years later.

Mark explains it all HERE.

ESA funds SKYLON Spaceplane propulsion

The notion of a truly reusable Single-Stage-To-Orbit "spaceplane" enjoyed by millions in the remarkable OrbiterSim simulation engine released by Dr. Martin Schweiger is one step closer to reality. The European Space Agency and British government have given official support to the "revolutionary propulsion technology" designed by UK-based Reaction Engines LTD .

REL has been awarded a one million euro contract by ESA for “Experimental Investigation of Key Technologies for a Turbine Based Combined Airbreather Rocket Engine." The ESA contract contributes towards a total program of almost £6 million.

ESA’s funding for the project is provided via subscriptions by the British National Space Centre partnership with two technology programs of the ESA – the Technology Research Programme (TRP) and the General Support Technology Programme (GSTP).

"The British National Space Centre (BNSC) is at the heart of UK efforts to explore and exploit space. BNSC is a partnership of seven Government Departments, two Research Councils, the Met Office and the Technology Strategy Board. It coordinates UK civil space activities and represents the UK at the European Space Agency," according to the REL press release.

REL’s partners in this programme are EADS Astrium at Ottobrun, Germany; DLR (Deutsches Zentrum fűr Luft- und Raumfahrt) in Lampoldhausen, Germany; and the University of Bristol, England.

More on the SKYLON and SABRE HERE.

UNT astronomers find samples of "fireball"

A week ago, following news of twin expanding debris clouds, left over from the Cosmos-Iridium satellite collision over Siberia, in an apparent coincidence, a meteor shattered in the upper atmosphere and quickly expanded into a daylight fireball witnessed by thousands from north to south central Texas. Such events are more common than is generally known, but increased population density and the proliferation of digital camera devices speed "news" of such events, spread by dazzled witnesses. Fortunately, cameras capturing such an event are very useful in locating where the burned out remains of meteorites can then be located and collected.

Astronomers at the University of North Texas in Denton traced through the countryside south of Dallas-Fort Worth during the past week, along with private collectors, and claim to have collected "pecan-sized" remnants.

Regina L. Burns of Physorg.com has the Story.

Breakthrough in Lunar Orbiter photograph remastering

A relatively bright (newer) crater amidst the Marius Hills (@303.58 E 13.98 N) from Lunar Orbiter V - frame 214 (LOV-214) as seen in a familiar medium resolution reproduction (lower center of inset) illustrates an immediate effect of the breakthrough reported February 19, resolving 40 year-old recorded telemetry from the fifth and final in the Orbiter series in 1968. The Orbiter data has become an entirely new mission, boulders and rich detail easily within the half-meter resolution promised from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later this year. Lunar Orbiter Digitization Project 2009.

Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP)

Progress Report 19 February 2009
To: LOIRP Status
From: Dennis Wingo
Subject: Progress Report, Milestone ALERT!

Folks Major milestones to report!

Demodulator

We have had a major milestone accomplished (well 98% of the way there).

Read the amazing progress report from MOONVIEWS HERE.

Lunar and Planetary Institute 2009 Field-Based Volcanism Workshop

“The Heat from Within Earthly Insights into Planetary Volcanism,” a NASA-sponsored workshop for educators, will be held July 12-19, 2009. Spend the week investigating different types of volcanoes in the Bend and Crater Lake regions of Oregon. Contrast these Earth-based analogs with volcanic features on Mars, the moon, Venus, and even the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune! From these field experiences and classroom exercises, participants will build an understanding of the planetary processes that produce volcanoes and of the patterns of volcanism on planets in our solar system.

The experience will be divided between the field and lab, where participants work with classroom-tested, hands-on, inquiry-based activities and resources that can be used to enhance Earth and space science teaching in the classroom. Participants receive lesson plans, supporting resources and presentations. A limited number of grants are available to cover registration.

Applications are due April 7, 2009. Participants will be notified of their acceptance by April 14, 2009.

For more information about the workshop and to submit an application online, visit http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/fieldtrips/2009/

New Simulation of Cosmos-Iridium Debris

Watch the University of Southampton simulation »

Into Space: Fred Haise lecture series in Alabama

Fred Haise, Lunar Module pilot on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, opens a lecture series tonight. - Mary Perez - Herald-Sun.com

Fred Haise didn’t set out to be a pilot or go to space.

His first job was delivering The Daily Herald, the predecessor to the Sun Herald, on his bicycle and then on a motor scooter.

He later became a cub reporter and when he graduated from Biloxi High School at 16, he went to what is now the Perkinston campus of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College to become a journalist.

Rather than risk being drafted during the Korean War, he enlisted to continue his studies and became a pilot instead of a reporter — a career move that changed the course of his life and thrust him into the national spotlight.

At 36, when he was supposed to be the sixth man to walk on the moon, the world watched as he and his fellow Apollo 13 astronauts, James Lovell and John Swigert, using ingenuity and slide rules, figured how to get their ailing spacecraft safely home. Their story was made into a popular movie, “Apollo 13,” starring Bill Paxton as Haise. “I didn’t look at myself as a public figure,” said Haise, who was awarded the Presidential Medal for Freedom in 1970 and was inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor.

He will talk about some of his experiences tonight during this year’s first program in the Issues + Answers Lecture Series, sponsored by USM Gulf Coast College of Science and Technology and the Sun Herald. Admission is free.

A month after his Apollo 13 mission in May 1970, Haise was welcomed home to Biloxi with one of the biggest parades in the city’s history and a ceremony to rename Church Street where he lived to Haise Street.

Three years later, he had a second brush with fate while flying a World War II airplane used in the movie “Tora, Tora, Tora.” The engine quit and on landing the plane flipped. Haise was burned over 70 percent of his body. He wouldn’t let doctors put in any metal pins or plates so he could continue to fly.

He did fly again, becoming the first to fly the space shuttle Enterprise off the back of a Boeing 747 airplane and land it safely.

“I didn’t just fly the Enterprise,” he said, but was involved in the design and development of the space shuttle.

After retiring from NASA, he was vice president of space programs at Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

“Some people look at it as I had trouble holding a job,” he joked about his career.

Haise said that it didn’t seem that incredible that a Biloxi boy was on his way to the moon. “It was just another step in that trail in my aviation experience,” he said.

Today, Haise lives in Houston with his wife, Patt, and has a second home in Gautier. He is a board member of the Infinity Science Center and a fundraising campaign — $2 Our Hero — was named in his honor to raise the $4 million that is still needed to build the center in Hancock County.

While he’s on the Coast, Haise will attend three fundraising events for Infinity and one in Hattiesburg for the Boy Scouts’ Pine Burr Council.

“As a boy, I was in the Pine Burr Council Troop 212, Dan Beard Patrol in Biloxi,” said Haise. “My scoutmaster was E.P. Wilkes, the original founder of the Biloxi/Gulfport Daily Herald.”

He never forgot where he came from and Haise anticipates he will see many people he knows in the crowd tonight.

The university invites speakers who have a unique look at different subjects, said USM spokesperson Charmaine Williams Schermund. Haise will share his vision for the nation’s space program and the impact the industry has had on the quality of American life.

Bill Moore - New Chief at KSC Visitors Center

New chief pushes space center's 'real stuff ' (And 700 Employees!)

William Moore began his new duties as chief operating officer of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex this month.

The 57-year-old Atlanta native replaced Dan LeBlanc, who resigned in October after more than 12 years at the complex, the last six as COO. LeBlanc's strong marketing and guidance is credited with pushing the facility to the forefront of Central Florida destinations.

The 42-year-old attraction, built as a means for NASA astronauts' and employees' families to view space center operations, draws more than 1.5 visitors annually.

Moore comes from the Independence Visitor Center in Philadelphia, which displays the historic Liberty Bell. He will now oversee some 700 employees at the visitor center.

In an interview Wednesday, Moore talked about the future challenges and current pleasures of his new job.

QUESTION: What are the visitor center's strengths in the poor economy, and how will you build on them?

ANSWER: This is an absolutely fascinating place and a wonderful resource, and it can tell the NASA story really, really well to people around the world.

Our strengths are that we have real history. This is the history of America's space program.

Read the Interview in FLORIDA TODAY