Space scientists and the Mars rover-loving public had quite a scare this week.
On Monday, scientists behind the solar-powered rovers Spirit and Opportunity said that they were planning to put the robots to sleep because of a NASA recommendation to trim $4 million from the program's budget. But a day later, the space agency said in a statement that neither of the robots would be shut down because of budget cuts, according to the Associated Press.
Taxpayer outcry must have been strong.
It's easy to see why: In their four years exploring the Red Planet, Spirit and Opportunity have produced scientific discoveries that have ignited the public imagination. For example, they've produced geologic evidence that water once flowed near or on the surface of Mars.
But operating rovers can be a pricey venture. Spirit and Opportunity were originally planned for missions lasting only three months, at a total cost of $820 million. Now, NASA pays about $20 million annually to keep the robots running, according to the AP.
Still, the cuts would have been a devil's bargain. NASA was trying to trim spending to cover the overrun costs of sending a new Hummer-sized rover to Mars in 2009, according to the AP. So the question remains: How will NASA shift its budget to launch its newfangled rover and keep up the twins? A request for comment from NASA was not immediately returned.
It just got a little easier to have that weightless feeling in California, if you're willing to spend $3,500.
NASA Ames Research Center, based in Silicon Valley, has teamed up with Las Vegas-based Zero Gravity (Zero-G) to host commercial flights that allow passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness. Under the agreement, called the Reimbursable Space Act Agreement, NASA will let Zero-G park its aircraft, a modified Boeing 727-200 called G-Force One, on the Moffett airfield and take off from its runway. Under contract with NASA, the two organizations will collaborate on research and astronaut training this fall.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Zero-G will reimburse NASA for the use of the runway and support costs.
The first Zero-G flight from Ames is scheduled for this Saturday, but the flight is already sold out. Tickets on Zero-G's roughly 90-minute flight cost $3,500, according to the company. It plans to book more flights for this year. Similarly in 2006, Zero-G began flying its craft from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That year, it flew up to seven flights per week.
"We are honored to be able to fly from Moffett Field and allow our passengers the opportunity to fly like Superman and float in midair just like NASA astronauts from an actual NASA center," Zero-G Chairman Peter Diamandis said in a statement.
PASADENA, Calif.--When PayPal founder Elon Musk entered the commercial space business in 2002, he was apparently not welcomed with open arms by the old guard.
But here at the 50 Years in Space conference Friday, Musk was in a much different position with his Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which is developing a series of rocket launchers and has a space-transportation contract with NASA.
"Thanks for being in the business, you give us fresh life. We need it," Robert Dickman, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said following Musk's morning speech at CalTech.
During his self-described "uncorporate" talk, Musk reported good news for SpaceX, based in El Segundo, Calif. He said the company reached a milestone Thursday by finishing the primary engine for Falcon 9, its larger rocket launcher with which it will conduct a few operational lift-offs with satellites next year. (Musk reportedly said earlier in the week that Falcon 9 could launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station next fall.)
SpaceX has launched two of its Falcon 1 rockets from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, but the two tests fell flat. The company plans a third launch of Falcon 1 early next year.
Musk said his goal with SpaceX is to reduce the cost and improve the reliability of space transportation. SpaceX will launch payloads like satellites into space at a third of the cost of its domestic competition and at half of the cost of its international competition, according to Musk.
"What SpaceX is trying to do is to put the cost of and reliability of space transportation on a path that you've seen in other technological areas," he said. "The real potential for Falcon 9 is reusability."
According to SpaceX's Web site, Falcon 9 is a "two-stage, liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene (RP-1) powered launch vehicle. It uses the same engines, structural architecture (with a wider diameter), avionics and launch system" as the company's first rocket launcher, Falcon 1.
Musk said that when he was studying physics as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, he thought about what mattered most to the future of humanity. His answers were "the Internet, a transition to sustainable energy economy and space exploration." And Musk has clearly bet his time and money on all three--by founding PayPal, as chairman of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors, and by establishing and investing his own money in SpaceX.
"For the first time in the Earth's 4 billion year history we have the ability to extend life beyond Earth," he said. "The reason I founded SpaceX was to try in a little way to make that happen. I don't think SpaceX will do it all, that would be ludicrous. But we're playing a role in helping private and government space exploration happen."
On Monday, according to a Reuters story, NASA launched some trash into space. No, don't read that sentence again.
International Space Station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin (left) and astronaut Clayton Anderson work with an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) earlier this month.
(Credit: NASA)The trouble, the story says, was that there isn't enough room on the space shuttle to bring back a 1,400-pound machine containing ammonia and a piece of obsolete video equipment weighing 212 pounds. Although flinging the waste into the galaxy was not exactly NASA's first choice, the organization felt it had no other option.
So International Space Station flight engineer Clay Anderson launched the items from the space station, with radars attached to the rubble to monitor its pattern of movement, according to Reuters.
However, there are risks associated with this procedure. The debris will float in space for 300 days before combusting in Earth's atmosphere, the story says, posing the risk of leaving the waste unattended for 10 months with the possibility of the trash flying into the orbit of a future space shuttle. And if the wreckage does not fully combust in the atmosphere, it has a 1 in 5,000 chance of landing in a populated area, rather than the ocean as intended.
To NASA's credit, it will issue warnings if the debris becomes a serious threat to security. Meanwhile, I'll be hiding under a rock.
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