http://moonandback.com/2013/03/05/this-isnt-sci-fi/ Wild fire at night photo

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/2013/03/csf-congratulates-spacex-and-nasa-on-crs-2-launch/ Bazinga LOL

Commercial crew program threatened by budget cuts
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: February 23, 2013

4

Automatic spending cuts due to go into effect March 1 would likely extend U.S. reliance on Russia for human spaceflight, delay development of badly-needed next-generation weather satellites, and force a reduction in radar scans searching for space debris, according to Obama administration officials.


Artist's concept of Boeing's CST-100 commercial crew spacecraft. Credit: Boeing

That's if Congress and the White House don't act to avoid the across-the-board cuts, which will be automatically triggered at the end of next week without a compromise on how to deal with the federal government's budget deficit.

NASA would lose about $894 million from its current budget outlook in the period between March 1 and Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2013.

According to a letter to the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, the space agency's commercial crew program would suffer the brunt of the budget cuts.

By the second half of 2013, NASA says it will be unable to make payments to companies working on private spaceships under the agency's commercial crew program.

"Overall availability of commercial crew transportation services would be significantly delayed, thereby extending our reliance on foreign providers for crew transportation to the International Space Station," Bolden wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

NASA has public-private partnership agreements with Boeing Co., SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. to fund the design and testing of commercial spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to the space station. NASA makes payments to the companies upon completion of predetermined development milestones.

Until a commercial provider becomes operational, which NASA projects by 2017, U.S. astronauts will ride Russian Soyuz spacecraft while voyaging to the space station and back to Earth.

Bolden wrote the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, could cause launch delays for NASA's scientific research satellites and potential cancellations of space technology projects, such as advanced communications, radiation protection, nuclear systems and other fields.

The White House and Congress agreed on the sequestration plan in 2011 as part of a compromise to raise the federal government's debt limit. Sequestration was meant to be a "poison pill" to compel leaders in both parties to reach an agreement to rein in the budget deficit.

But lawmakers could not come to a resolution, and Congress reached a deal Jan. 1 to put off the spending cuts for two months and extend current income tax rates for individuals earning less than $400,000 and households earning less than $450,000.

Sequestration was originally set to go into effect at the beginning of 2013. It impacts all federal discretionary spending, slashing 8.2 percent annually from non-defense government agencies and 9.4 percent from military programs.

Unless Congress and the Obama administration agree on targeted budget cuts - sparing some programs and still hitting others - every corner of the government's military, research and regulatory apparatus will see their funding reduced.


Artist's concept of next-generation GOES weather satellites. Credit: NOAA

NOAA's next-generation geostationary weather observatories, currently scheduled for launch in 2015 and 2017, would face a delay of two or three years if the automatic budget cuts take effect and stay in place.

"This delay would increase the risk of a gap in satellite coverage and diminish the quality of weather forecasts and warnings," said Rebecca Blank, acting Secretary of Commerce.

Defense Department officials say sequestration would be devastating to the military, predicting thousands of furloughs and decreased combat readiness.

Air Force Space Command announced Feb. 8 it would reduce some missile warning and space surveillance operations.

Gen. Mark Welsh, Air Force chief of staff, told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 13 that Space Command would curtail observations using secondary radars to monitor for missile attacks and track objects in orbit.

The Air Force uses satellites and a network of ground-based radars for the early warning and surveillance tasks.

"We don't have as much redundancy now in the system and we don't have as much capacity to track objects in orbit," Welsh said.

Even if sequestration takes hold, it could be short-lived. The government's current budget resolution runs out March 27, and Congress must pass another budget by then to avoid a government shutdown. The new budget could include deficit reductions directed at specific programs, instead of across-the-board cuts.

SPACE TRAVEL
NASA Awards Commercial Crew Certification Contracts
by Candrea Thomas for Kennedy Space Center
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Dec 14, 2012


This artist concept shows the Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) Space Systems Dream Chaser spacecraft attached to the International Space Station. Image credit: SNC. For a larger version of this image please go here.

NASA announced Dec. 10 the next step in its plan to launch American astronauts from U.S. soil, selecting three companies to conduct activities under contracts that will enable future certification of commercial spacecraft as safe to carry humans to the International Space Station.

Advances made by these American companies during the first contract phase known as the certification products contracts (CPC) will begin the process of ensuring integrated crew transportation systems will meet agency safety requirements and standards to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station from the United States, ending the agency's reliance on Russia for these transportation services.

The second phase of certification will result in a separately competed contract.

CPC contractors are:
+ The Boeing Company, Houston, $9,993,000
+ Sierra Nevada Corporation Space System, Louisville, Colo., $10,000,000
+ Space Exploration technologies Corp., Hawthorne, Calif., $9,589,525

"These contracts represent important progress in restoring human spaceflight capabilities to the United States," said Phil McAlister, director of the Commercial Spaceflight Development Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"NASA and its industry partners are committed to the goal of safely and cost-effectively launching astronauts from home within the next five years."

During the Phase 1 CPC contracts, from Jan. 22, 2013 through May 30, 2014, the companies will work with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to discuss and develop products to implement the agency's flight safety and performance requirements.

This includes implementation across all aspects of the space system, including the spacecraft, launch vehicle, and ground and mission operations.

Under the contract, a certification plan will be developed to achieve safe, crewed missions to the space station. This includes data that will result in developing engineering standards, tests and analyses of the crew transportation systems design.

"I congratulate the three companies for their selection," said Ed Mango, CCP manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "This is the program's first major, fixed-price contract. The effort will bring space system designs within NASA's safety and performance expectations for future flights to the International Space Station."

The second phase of the certification contract, expected to begin in mid-2014, will involve a full and open competition. It will include the final development, testing and verifications necessary to allow crewed demonstration flights to the space station.

NASA is facilitating the development of U.S. commercial crew space transportation capabilities with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from low-Earth orbit for potential future government and commercial customers.

While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop these capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration.

Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration in the solar system

Virgin Galactic Selects Sim Platform for Spaceship Command Training

ORLANDO, Fla. — Virgin Galactic will use an advanced real-time image generator to train pilots on spaceship equipment and command. Quantum3D, Inc., a leading provider of visual computing solutions for government and commercial applications, today announced Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, has ordered Quantum3D’s six-channel Independence® IDX 7000 image generator.

“Our first priority in sub-orbital space exploration is safety, and by leveraging Quantum3D’s IDX 7000 with the most advanced image generation, we are giving our pilots the best training available for space exploration,” said Keith Colmer, senior test pilot, Virgin Galactic. “Quantum3D created an impressive high quality database, including imagery of our spaceship models, buildings, hangars, and spaceport to provide the most realistic simulation possible for our pilots, which will assist in creating a space program to support flying almost anyone to space and back safely.”

The IDX 7000 offers enhanced performance and capabilities to deliver Virgin Galactic a versatile and powerful simulation and training platform that can be setup in a dedicated room or easily transported, to meet a range of onsite, on-location and mobile training needs. Combined with Mantis® shader-based real-time scene management software with geo-specific, worldwide synthetic environments, Virgin Galactic will be able to train their pilots in a variety of simulations, from instrument/cockpit familiarization to a full range of special effects, sensors, weather, and lighting, along with mission-critical functions such as height-above-terrain and line-of-sight intersection testing.

“Virgin Galactic is on the cusp of a new frontier – making sub-orbital space accessibility a reality,” said Wade Guindy, president, Quantum3D. “We are proud to have Virgin Galactic using our IDX 7000 image generator and Mantis software to train their pilots for the future of consumer space travel.”

amazing. looks a bit like the grand canyon with a layer of dust.

Mt. Sharp Mars

Hey we can put you to work on these boards too. lol
Problem is very few people on Ihub care about Space flight. Most of us have our own websites now outside of Ihub. This fall after rehab work is done I'm going to bring Lagrange City on-line. No more pennt stocks just football and Lagrange City.
A lot of people will be moving their personal sites to Lagrange City.
I'm sure we can find a place for you if you're interested.

i got 'volunteered ' to woik on the space and astronomy news board.
am posting lots of links in that ibox. feel free to grab some as i have been stealing them left and right from everyone.

paper on the lunar magnetic 'field'
http://www-spc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell/papers/Lunar/

http://vimeo.com/45211213

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php Draco test fire video cool very cool

http://news.yahoo.com/tinkode-hacker-suspect-arrested-nasa-government-attacks-201805460.html


....'TinKode' Hacker Suspect Arrested for NASA, Government Attacks
By Matt Liebowitz, SecurityNewsDaily Staff Writer
Space.com | SPACE.com – 1 hr 30 mins ago....Email
Share0Print......Romanian police have arrested a man believed to be TinKode, the notorious hacker responsible for several daring, high-profile cyberattacks, including last year's breach of NASA's servers.

Razvan Manole Cernaianu, 20, from Timisoara, is accused of breaking into the websites of the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies, and posting information stolen from the sites to his personal blog, the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorist (DIICOT) said in a press release.

Cernaianu first drew international attention when he tapped into a computer server at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center last April and posted a screen grab of what he said was an FTP server containing files connected to confidential satellite data. [NASA Computer Hacked, Satellite Data Accessed]

TinKode also famously hacked into the websites of the British Royal Navy, the European Space Agency and MySQL, the latter of which he compromised by, ironically, exploiting an SQL injection flaw.

Along with his network intrusions, police said Cernaianu, reportedly an IT student, designed a hacking program, which he put up for sale on his blog, and posted a video on the blog showing the cyberattacks he carried out against official U.S. government sites.

This story was provided by SecurityNewsDaily, a sister siste of SPACE.com. You can follow SecurityNewsDaily on Twitter @Security_SND and on Facebook.

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Lauds NASA for Decision on Commercial Crew Program
By Alex Saltman, December 15th 2011

NASA’s Decision to Use More Efficient Space Act Agreements Will Shorten the Gap, Create Jobs, and Reduce Dependence on Russia

Washington, DC, Thursday, December 15, 2011 – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation congratulates NASA on the space agency’s important decision, announced today, to continue to use Space Act Agreements for the Commercial Crew Development Program. This decision will shorten the gap in U.S. access to space, help spur additional private investment, reduce America’s dependence on Russia, save taxpayer money, ensure the future of the International Space Station, and increase industry competition. Now that the Space Shuttle has retired, the Commercial Crew Program is the fastest way for America to regain our domestic access to space.

“Space Act Agreements are a proven way to get rapid, cost-effective results and will help ensure that the Commercial Crew Program is a success,” said CSF Executive Director Alex Saltman. “Space Act Agreements were used in the previous rounds of the Commercial Crew program, as well as the COTS Cargo Program. A NASA cost study has shown that the COTS Cargo development program, using Space Act Agreements, has been successful for a fraction of what a traditionally run program would have cost.”

“Competition is the key to the Commercial Crew Program, and we are pleased to see that NASA is continuing to promote competition, as recommended by the Government Accountability Office in a report released today.”

“This decision maximizes NASA’s bang-for-the-buck and brings America one big step closer to replacing the Space Shuttle with safe, reliable, and affordable commercial transportation to low-Earth orbit. The commercial crew program is an exciting partnership between commercial companies and NASA to combine innovative ideas and new investment from the private sector with NASA’s deep experience in human spaceflight.”

Today’s decision by NASA to continue using Space Act Agreements is supported by the results of previous programs. All recent NASA and Air Force launch vehicle development programs that have resulted in flights to orbit have used similar milestone-based agreements, rather than traditional contracts, for system development.

In June 2011, the CSF released a public white paper titled, “Commercial Spaceflight Federation Supports Use of Space Act Agreements (SAAs) for Next Phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program,” stating, “SAAs are the best means for NASA to support commercial development of systems to transport crew and cargo to the Space Station.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The CSF’s member companies – which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers and service providers – are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director Alexander Saltman at saltman@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bay_area/news/texas-space-alliance-urges-officials-to-support-texas-space-port/article_0447bfd9-e431-53c2-ab1d-94d279a4ca20.html NEW SPACEPORT ??

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1111/23commercialcrew/ Gov funding cuts

http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/111113nextyear/ SpaceX

http://translogic.aolautos.com/2011/10/24/translogic-76-elon-musk-interview-spacex

http://www.spacenews.com/venture_space/110930-bigelow-downsizes.html Bigelow staff reduction What a shame a sign of the times

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1569 Three New Members

FTL - wheeeeee Star Trek here we come!!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271/ns/technology_and_science-science/?gt1=43001#.Tnw2UHNMcWw

By Frank Jordans and Seth Borenstein


updated 9/22/2011 5:40:39 PM ET
GENEVA — A pillar of physics — that nothing can go faster than the speed of light — appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories.

Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity — the famous E (equals) mc2 equation — just doesn't happen.

"The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The organization, known as CERN, hosted part of the experiment, which is unrelated to the massive $10 billion Large Hadron Collider also located at the site.

Gillies told The Associated Press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.



AP
This undated file photo shows famed physicist Albert Einstein, whose special theory of relativity —the famous E (equals) mc2 equation —could be at risk.

"They are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they've done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the world to repeat the measurements," he said Thursday.

Scientists at the competing Fermilab in Chicago have promised to start such work immediately.

"It's a shock," said Fermilab head theoretician Stephen Parke, who was not part of the research in Geneva. "It's going to cause us problems, no doubt about that — if it's true."

The Chicago team had similar faster-than-light results in 2007, but those came with a giant margin of error that undercut its scientific significance.

Other outside scientists expressed skepticism at CERN's claim that the neutrinos — one of the strangest well-known particles in physics — were observed smashing past the cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second).



Anja Niedringhaus / AP
The globe of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, is illuminated outside Geneva.

University of Maryland physics department Chairman Drew Baden called it "a flying carpet," something that was too fantastic to be believable.

CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles (730 kilometers) away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds, making the difference statistically significant. But given the enormous implications of the find, they still spent months checking and rechecking their results to make sure there were no flaws in the experiment.

"We have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement," said Antonio Ereditato, a physicist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, who was involved in the experiment known as OPERA.

The researchers are now looking to the United States and Japan to confirm the results.

More science news from MSNBC Tech & Science



K.U. Leuven Robots gear up for the farm
Future of Tech: For the past 10,000 years or so, farmers have been waking at the crack of dawn to tend their fields. Such a bleary-eyed chore could become a thing of the past thanks to robots geared-up for the farm.

Whales mingle as Northwest Passage ice melts
How DEET works: Study says it confuses insects
Before genocide, Bosnians suffered greatly
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A similar neutrino experiment at Fermilab near Chicago would be capable of running the tests, said Stavros Katsanevas, the deputy director of France's National Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics Research. The institute collaborated with Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory for the experiment at CERN.

Katsanevas said help could also come from the T2K experiment in Japan, though that is currently on hold after the country's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of nature.

Einstein's special relativity theory that says energy equals mass times the speed of light squared underlies "pretty much everything in modern physics," said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN who was not involved in the experiment. "It has worked perfectly up until now."

He cautioned that the neutrino researchers would have to explain why similar results weren't detected before.

"This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully," said Ellis.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/216733/20110920/nasa-plans-to-spend-1-6bn-to-ferry-astronauts-to-iss-u-s-space-agency-international-space-station-ru.htm $$$$$$$ for the space program

http://news.discovery.com/space/spaceship-factory-open-for-business-110920.html

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1567 News Out

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/09/06/nasas-ccdev-2-progress-report/ Great Info here

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110826/NEWS02/108260322/We-need-heavy-lift-rocket-details-now-lawmakers-tell-NASA?odyssey=obinsite Lawmakers demand update on heavy lift programs

http://www.space.com/12810-spaceport-america-construction-commercial-space-travel.html

http://space.flatoday.net/2011/08/faa-approves-launch-of-orbitals-demo.html Cargo Flights ISS Trial Runs scheduled

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44329389/ns/technology_and_science-space/ cargo Transport for the ISS

http://news.discovery.com/space/russian-resistance-to-spacex-dragon-docking-110427.html

https://www.facebook.com/NextStepInSpace?ref=ts&sk=info#!/media/set/?set=a.10150776660810131.729804.353851465130

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php Update on the ISS PROJECT

http://www.xcor.com/index.html XCor Update page here

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1565 Nice Update and awards proof the space race will continue

x7 flare overnight.

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/ Awesome future

Sorry try this linkhttp://www.theraceison.co.uk/blog/index.php/2011/04/18/is-virgin-galactic-incredible-or-mundane/ Great video feed here

http://www.theraceison.co.uk/blog/index.php/2011/04/18/is-virgin-galactic-incredible-or-mundane/Personally I think the prospects going foward here are endless, I would love to go up someday.

http://www.spaceweather.com/



ELECTRON WARNING: Analysts at the GSFC Space Weather Lab report elevated levels of
energetic electrons around Earth. ("GOES 13 > 0.8 MeV integral electron flux is
above 105 pfu." ) This is caused by the high-speed solar stream now blowing around
our planet. Spacecraft with orbits passing through or in the vicinity of the Earth's
outer radiation belt could be affected by these charged particles.

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1562 New News

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1559 SHUTTLE Legacy and Welcome to New commerical Spaceflight

http://sncorp.com/news/press/pr11/snc_dream_nasa_team.shtml News Out Folks

http://www.comspacewatch.com/ News source for us all

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43211040#43211040 We are featured on MSNBC //Great piece

nasa says expect communication and power disruptions over the next few days

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110607/ts_alt_afp/usspaceweather

watch the video on spaceweather.com. this one is a beaut.

.
U.K. spaceplane passes technical review

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only
by Staff Writers
London (UPI) May 24, 2011
A proposed British space plane that would function as a rocket but operate from runways like an airliner has passed an important technical review, experts said.
Propulsion experts from the European Space Agency have assessed the proposed Skylon vehicle's engines and declared the proposal technically sound, the BBC reported Tuesday.

"ESA has not identified any critical topics that would prevent a successful development of the engine," they said in their review.

The next step in development of the Skylon should include a ground demonstration of its Sabre engine, a key innovation designed to operate on oxygen from the air like an aircraft jet engine in the early stage of flight before switching to full rocket mode as the vehicle climbs out of the atmosphere.

Skylon's "single-stage-to-orbit" operation and re-usability could substantially reduce the cost of space missions, its backers at a company called Reaction Engines Limited said.

Development of the U.K. space plane concept has been under way for almost 30 years, as an evolution of a concept first put forward by British Aerospace and Rolls Royce in the 1980s.

http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/spaceshiptwos-first-feathered-flight/ Great Tech Here

http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1541 NASTAR NEWS UPDATE

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=33576 NASA reports first commercial payloads today

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/73441 US Airforce looking at our Private space launch systems