The Space Shuttle is struggling to get back to the launchpad. The committee overseeing the revamped Shutle says there should be no raodblocks to the shuttle returning to operation shortly even though 3 of the 15 recommendations of the CAIB report are still to be implemented.
"I don't see any show-stoppers at this point," said Joseph Cuzzupoli, a member of the Return to Flight task force headed by former astronauts Frank Stafford and Richard Covey.
The optimistic outlook came despite the fact that three of 15 recommendations made by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, or CAIB, have not yet been met.
In addition, members of the panel overseeing how NASA implements the findings of the board disagree about how far along shuttle heat shield repair techniques need to be to fulfill one of the key return-to-flight criteria, said panel co-chairman Covey.
In their report after the 2003 Columbia disaster, in which seven astronauts were killed, accident investigators wrote that NASA must have a "practicable" solution for repairing "the widest possible range of damage."
Exactly what that means set off a debate during a task force public hearing in Houston on Wednesday. "We've got not only ambiguity in the wording of the recommendation, we've also got apparent dissenting views of some of the CAIB members themselves," Covey said in a teleconference after the hearing.
"So we naturally have some disagreements about what the real intent was."
Yes, indeed. If you overlook the fact that the whole concept is a lemon, it's great.
Cassini Update: Ice Volcano On The Saturnine Moon
Sounds like the title of a 1950s sci-fi paperback, no? Well, here it is.
Infrared images snapped by the orbiting Cassini reveal a 20-mile-wide dome that appears to be a cryovolcano, a volcanic-like vent that spews forth ice instead of lava. Scientists theorize the volcano at one time spat out icy plumes that released methane into Titan's atmosphere.
The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has a significant atmosphere made up of nitrogen and methane. Its atmosphere is similar to that of primordial Earth and scientists believe that studying it could provide clues to how life began.
Scientists have long speculated that the organic materials in Titan's atmosphere were formed by seas or lakes of methane or ethane, but the latest Cassini images did not show any evidence that Titan is awash in pools of methane. Methane is a highly flammable gas on Earth, but it is liquid on Titan because of the intense atmospheric pressure and cold.
"Interpreting this feature as a cryovolcano provides an alternative explanation for the presence of methane in Titan's atmosphere," said Christophe Sotin, a team member of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer.
More details to follow later. Still, suddenly there's a glut of space news after a week of dormancy. Must be a volcano thing.
SpaceX Aims For Pirvate Launch Of Booster
The Falcon 1 had a test firing on the launchpad.
Assuming that there are no further delays in lofting a Titan 4 classified mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California - now slated for a July departure - SpaceX expects to receive a Falcon 1 launch window from that spaceport for an August timeframe.
The five second engine firing on May 27 of Falcon 1's Merlin main engine was "picture perfect," explained Elon Musk, chairman and chief executive officer of the El Segundo, California-based company in a just-issued SpaceX update.
Falcon I development is essentially complete, Musk added, although SpaceX engineers will continue to do testing and retesting right up to the day of launch from Space Launch Complex 3 West at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The premier liftoff of Falcon I will carry the U.S. Defense Department's TacSat-1 satellite. For SpaceX, the rocket-for-hire business is looking good, Musk stated.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded the company a contract for Falcon I launch services. The value of that contract could be as much as $100 million, depending on how many launch options are exercised. This is independent of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)/Air Force FALCON program, he added, for which SpaceX will be conducting a launch later this year from the firm's launch complex in the Marshall Islands.
The FALCON program -- not the Falcon 1 SpaceX booster -- stands for Force Application and Launch from the Continental U.S. This military effort is aimed at showcasing technologies for affordable and responsive space lift.
"There are also a number of other customer discussions that are quite mature. It appears quite likely that we will receive one or two more launch contracts over the next few months," Musk said. SpaceX now has three launches to carry out in the next six months, he said, and considers the company goal of achieving an annual launch rate of five-plus in a few years as reachable.
"Not yet mentioned on our manifest or in any press release is our classified launch business, for obvious reasons," Musk said. The rocket executive did not elaborate, except to say that the dollar value exceeds all unclassified business combined, excluding the U.S. Air Force $100 million contract.
I didn't even know these folks were doing this, let alone existed. It's sort of straight out of Robert A. Heinlein's 'Destination Moon' where RAH argued that private concerns and businesses should take us to psace more efficiently; not inefficient government agencies. Yes, where there's a profit there's motivation.
- Art Neuro
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