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Archive for nasa advisory council

SwRI scientist named chairman of NASA advisory committee

By alkaon on May 1, 2013 No Comments



SwRI's David J. McComas will advise NASA Administrator as chairman of the NASA Advisory Council's Science Committee.

SwRI’s David J. McComas will advise NASA Administrator as chairman of the NASA Advisory Council’s Science Committee.







James Aldridge
Web Editor- San Antonio Business Journal

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Southwest Research Institute’s David J. McComas has been appointed to serve on the NASA Advisory Council as well as chair the NAC Science Committee.

McComas is the assistant vice president of the space science and engineering division. The council advises NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on matters pertaining the space agency. These areas include: Science; Aeronautics; Audit, Finance and Analysis; Commercial Space; Education and Public Outreach; Human Exploration and Operations; Information Technology Infrastructure; and Technology and Innovation.

The Science Committee deliberates on research topics led by the NASA mission directorates on Earth and space science-related programs, projects, activities and facilities.

Since joining SwRI in 2000, McComas has helped lead the institute’s overall space science and engineering program. He currently serves as principal investigator of NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) and Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers (TWINS) missions. He is also the principal investigator for space science instruments on numerous other NASA missions, including two instruments for the Solar Probe Plus mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2018.

San Antonio-based SwRI is an independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organization. It has nearly 3,000 employees and an annual research volume of more than $584 million.

Subscribe to the new San Antonio Business Journal Morning Edition at this link.

James Aldridge oversees online content of the newspaper; edits and reports stories for the online edition.


Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2013/04/30/swri-scientist-named-chairman-of-nasa.html

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John Kelly: NASA still aiming for manned Mars mission

By alkaon on April 30, 2013 No Comments

NASA’s not giving up on flying people to Mars.

Some critics of the space agency’s recent proposal to fly astronauts to an asteroid say we’re “settling” for something less than the big prize: humans walking on the red planet.

Not true. The mission to an asteroid is part of a stepping-stone approach to sending human beings exploring deeper into the solar system. A sensible look at NASA’s current flight capabilities, human limitations and the space exploration budget means Mars isn’t possible yet.

NASA’s top human spaceflight chief, Bill Gerstenmaier, recently went over the payoffs with a committee of the NASA Advisory Council.

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NASA’s Asteroid Mission Takes Shape as Congress Remains Skeptical

By alkaon on April 27, 2013 No Comments

NASA‘s proposed mission to snag an asteroid and bring it into lunar orbit to be visited by astronauts is beginning to take shape even as arguments over its rationale continue. NASA is asking for $100 million for the mission for FY2014.

According to NasaSpaceFlight.com, the asteroid mission is divided into three parts. They are detection and characterization, rendezvous, capture, and redirection, and finally the expedition to the asteroid by NASA astronauts. The shape of the mission was set forth in a recent presentation to the human exploration and operations committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) by William Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.

Detection and characterization

First NASA has to find an asteroid that meets all of its criteria, according to NASASpaceFlight.com. It has to be the right size (about seven meters in diameter according to the original Keck Institute study), the right mass, and the right spin characteristics. The asteroid also has to be already headed toward cislunar space to make it easier to redirect it into lunar orbit. The Keck Institute study suggests that the asteroid be a carbonaceous C-type asteroid containing a mix of volatiles, organic materials, rock, and metal.

Rendezvous, capture, and redirection

Next, a robotic spacecraft, using a 40-kilowatt solar electric propulsion engine, would be sent forth to capture the asteroid and redirect it into a retrograde orbit around the moon, according to NASASpaceFlight.com. The spacecraft would have an inflatable bag or sleeve that would capture the asteroid and a hydrazine system that would help to despin it. Using the continuous thrust possible for an SEP engine, the spacecraft would then deliver it to a lunar orbit that NASA estimates will be stable for a hundred years.

Human mission

Once the asteroid is safely in lunar orbit, a crew of NASA astronauts, flying in an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle launched by the heavy lift Space Launch System, would visit the asteroid in a 20-day mission, NASASpaceFlight.com. The astronauts would use a boom of some sort to connect the Orion with the robotic spacecraft, which would remain attached to the asteroid, and use them to translate from the Orion to the asteroid with several space walks. The astronauts would explore the small asteroid and take samples that would be returned to Earth for study.

NASA: asteroid mission all that can be afforded

According to the Orlando Sentinel, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden ran into some skepticism during a House hearing on the space agency’s exploration plans. Why not, the question was posed, go to the moon instead? Bolden replied that considering the meager budgets NASA has been getting, the asteroid mission is all that can be afforded.

The Senate was somewhat more favorable to the asteroid mission with the Space Subcommittee Chair Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., expressing enthusiasm and the usually outspoken ranking member, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, largely silent.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo, The Last Moonwalker, and Dreams of Barry’s Stepfather. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasas-asteroid-mission-takes-shape-congress-remains-skeptical-174000019.html

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Cutting NASA’s Education and Public Outreach Efforts Now Is Short-sighted and …

By alkaon on April 27, 2013 No Comments

See other posts from April 2013

Lars Perkins

Posted By Lars Perkins

2013/04/26 04:45 CDT

Topics:

Space Policy

This is an expanded version of remarks that Mr. Perkins gave during a meeting of the Education and Public Outreach committee of the NASA Advisory Council on April 25th, 2013, which he chaired, and is reprinted here with permission. –Casey Dreier

The administration’s proposed FY ’14 budget contains drastic and unprecedented cuts to NASA’s education funding. NASA has been uniquely effective in engaging the public in science and exploration, and to cut these important programs at a time when the nation is facing an unprecedented crisis in in its ability to satisfy the nation’s need for engineers and scientists. The entire NASA budget, at approximately $17 billion, constitutes only $0.005 per tax dollar, and the education budget prior to the proposed cuts represents only about 1% of that, or one two-hundredth of a penny per tax dollar. To cut these programs now is short-sighted and counterproductive.

Why has NASA been able to so compellingly engage the public’s imagination? We are part of a species that looks the sky and wonders, “where did we come from?”, “Where are we going?”, “what’s out there?” A species that – so far – we know only to exist on our blue marble. And we are part of a country that cares enough to ask questions, the answers to which have unknown value. And still we ask, and because we do, because the country, NASA does, everyone who toils day-to-day, driving a cab, flipping a burger, teaching a child, are all explorers. All part of a community, a society, a country that dares to ask questions in the same spirit that a child asks “why is the sky blue?”

Watching Curiosity Land on Mars

Navid Baraty

Watching Curiosity Land on Mars

A couple in the midst of the crowd in Times Square, listens intently to the news reports as NASA’s Curiosity rover attempts to land on Mars.

We are part of a culture of explorers who can touch a little bit of immortality by leaving to our children, and their children’s children, the very important legacy of our discoveries. Why do this? We are human. We are curious. Our Mars rover, named Curiosity by a Chinese American girl, built by the finest engineering organization on the planet in concert with our international partners, commanded by a team including an Iranian-American with a mohawk (who became a celebrity – imagine that! a celebrity engineer!) This was a true example of the American melting pot at work. And oh how we celebrated its success! In the streets, in a way we haven’t celebrated a national achievement in decades. Not divided by city, love of a sports team, or political affiliation. Not drawn together by shared tragedy but by shared success. What other government entity, what other country, can do that? No one asks these questions better than NASA. No one answers them better. No other arm of government has been more passionately connected to the American people and to the American spirit.

Could we do better? of course. And we are on the way. To interrupt our progress at this point is, in my opinion, a mistake that could be very difficult from which to recover. Let’s find a way to continue the extraordinary work that NASA does, even in this challenging fiscal environment. We owe it to our children, our curiosity, our humanity – as well as to the economic future of our country.

Article source: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2013/20130425-nac-education-committee-chair.html

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NASA Planetary Science Bracing for Brunt of Sequester Cuts

By alkaon on April 10, 2013 No Comments




The logo of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.


The logo of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
CREDIT: NASA


WASHINGTON — As NASA begins to apportion the 5 percent budget cut mandated under sequestration, parts of the U.S. space agency are being asked to cough up more so that others can cough up less or be spared altogether, a senior NASA official told an advisory panel April 4.

NASA’s Planetary Science Division, which Congress favored with a $200 million increase in the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (H.R. 933) that President Barack Obama signed into law March 26, is expected to lose most if not all of that money as sequestration siphons some $900 million off the agency’s enacted $17.5 billion top line.

James Green, NASA’s Planetary Science Division director, told members of the NASA Advisory Council’s planetary science subcommittee not to expect a straight 5 percent across-the-board cut as the agency rolls its top line back to $16.6 billion, as required under sequestration.

In order to protect higher-priority programs, Green said, NASA will be cutting lower-priority programs, including planetary science, by more than 5 percent. [Planetary Science Takes Budget Hit in 2013 (Infographic)]

“We are not a protected program, we are not a high-priority program,” Green told his fellow planetary scientists. “Consequently, you can assume that [the Planetary Science Division’s reduction] would be higher.”

Green did not say which agency programs would be spared, but NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has previously identified the James Webb Space Telescope, the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocketand the Commercial Crew Program as top administration priorities.

“The agency had already informed Congress that certain things will be protected,” Green said. “So we will have a reduced program below the funding Congress has provided.”

Congress included $1.39 billion in H.R. 933 for NASA’s Planetary Science Division — a $200 million increase compared with the $1.19 billion the division was getting under a stopgap spending bill that expired March 27.

The exact amount of funding planetary science will losewill not be known for about a month, when NASA sends Congress its proposed operating plan for the remainder of 2013, Green said.

If planetary science loses too much of the increase it got from Congress, it could spell the end of Green’s plan to solicit proposals next year for a Discovery-class mission that would launch around the end of the decade.

“I’m working very hard to find anything and everything I can to move Discovery out of 2015 and into 2014,” Green said. However, “sequestration will undoubtedly affect that.”

Discovery missions are cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch, and led by the proposing scientist, or principal investigator.

Diana Simpson, a Republican staff member on the House Appropriations Committee, said NASA does not have to cut every program by an equal 5 percent in order to comply with sequestration.

“They have some discretion in how they can respond to [sequestration] and adjust,” Simpson said here April 4 during a meeting of the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board. “They can make proposals to mitigate the impact of those cuts on certain programs and try to get them back to funding levels that they need to be at in order to achieve their goals for the year.

“Of course, the other side of that is that in order to mitigate cuts in some programs, you have to make even bigger cuts in other areas.”

Across town, Green hammered home much the same message to his constituents.

To shield priority activities, he said, NASA “has to come up with that money somewhere else. It does so by taxing, if you will … parts of the program that have less of a priority, from the administration’s perspective.”

This story was provided by Space News, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

Article source: http://www.space.com/20579-nasa-planetary-science-budget-sequester.html

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NASA Advisory Council Commercial Space Committee Meeting

By alkaon on February 28, 2013 No Comments

Category: Space Commercialization

Event Format: Advisory Meeting

Date: Friday, March 1, 2013

Location: Embassy Suites–Denver Tech Center, Belleview Room, 10250 E Costilla Avenue, Centennial, CO 80112, US

[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 30 (Wednesday, February 13, 2013)] [Notices] [Pages 10213-10214] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2013-03209]

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[Notice 13-012]

NASA Advisory Council Commercial Space Committee Meeting

AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

ACTION: Notice of meeting.

SUMMARY: In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Public Law 92-462, as amended, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces a meeting of the Commercial Space Committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC). This Committee reports to the NAC. The meeting will be held for the purpose of soliciting, from the scientific community and other persons, scientific and technical information relevant to program planning.

DATES: Friday, March 1, 2013, 8:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m., Local Time.

ADDRESSES: Embassy Suites–Denver Tech Center, Belleview Room, 10250 E Costilla Avenue, Centennial, CO 80112

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Thomas W. Rathjen, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, (202) 358-0552, fax (202) 358-2885, or thomas.rathjen-1@nasa.gov or Mr. David M. Lengyel, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, (202) 358-0391, fax (202) 358-2682, or dlengyel@hq.nasa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The meeting will be open to the public up to the capacity of the room. This meeting is also available telephonically and by WebEx. Any interested person may call the USA toll free conference call number (866) 818-9721 or toll number (210) 339-6199, pass code 030113, to participate in this meeting by telephone. The WebEx link is https://nasa.webex.com/, the meeting number is 997 916 761, and the password is CommSpace@0301.

The agenda for the meeting includes the following topics:

–International Space Station Utilization Status and Plans

–Description of NASA’s Agency Level Commercialization Study Plans

It is imperative that the meeting be held on these dates to accommodate the scheduling priorities of the key participants. U.S. citizens, Permanent Resident (green card holders), and foreign nationals can attend this meeting without prior registration. Public attendees will be required to sign-in; parking at the Embassy Suites Denver Tech Center is free.

Patricia D. Rausch, Advisory Committee Management Officer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. [FR Doc. 2013-03209 Filed 2-12-13; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7510-13-P

Web Site Address: https://nasa.webex.com/

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Article source: http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=7963

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NASA plans to send new rover to Mars in 2020

By alkaon on December 5, 2012 No Comments

NASA’s Curiosity and Opportunity rovers may be getting some company on Mars.

The space agency announced plans to send a new rover to the Red Planet in 2020. Though the specific scientific goals of the mission have not yet been decided, one may be to collect samples of rock and soil from the Martian surface that could be returned to Earth for study.

If the project goes ahead – it is contingent upon Congress agreeing to fund NASA at the level the Obama administration has requested for the next five years – the new rover would bring the number of active and planned Mars missions to seven.

In addition to Curiosity and Opportunity, the two rovers currently operating on Mars, NASA has two spacecraft in orbit around our planetary neighbor: Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Next year, NASA is set to launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN satellite, or MAVEN, to study the Martian atmosphere. And just a few months ago, the space agency gave the green light to a mission called Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, which will launch in 2016 to study the interior of Mars.

NASA is cooperating with the European Space Agency on several Mars missions as well.

The new rover will be based on the design for the Mars Science Laboratory, the official name for the Curiosity mission. As such, it will use the same entry, descent and landing technology designed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge and made famous by the lab’s “Seven Minutes of Terror” video. But the new rover will have a different suite of scientific instruments, which will be selected after the mission’s scientific objectives are decided.

Former astronaut John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science,  will elaborate on the announcement this afternoon at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. His QA with reporters is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.

Scooping up samples from Mars and sending them safely back to Earth is a long-term goal for NASA, said Steven Squyres, chairman of the NASA Advisory Council and an astronomy professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The new rover will probably be designed with that in mind.

“Collecting a cache of samples is difficult — it requires a very capable vehicle,” Squyres said Tuesday. “The vehicle that John Grunsfeld just described for launch in 2020 is fully capable of doing that job.”

President Obama has set a goal of sending astronauts to Mars orbit sometime in the 2030s.

Return to the Science Now blog.

Follow me on Twitter @LATkarenkaplan

Article source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-new-mars-rover-curiosity-nasa-20121205,0,4858566.story

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Europe will help build key Space Launch System component, NASA official tells …

By alkaon on November 29, 2012 No Comments


Lee Roop | lroop@al.com

By

Lee Roop | lroop@al.com

The Huntsville Times

on November 28, 2012 at 7:18 PM, updated November 28, 2012 at 7:21 PM

Brought to you by



European service module
Artist’s concept of an Orion spacecraft and the European-built service module. (Image credit ESA) 

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – A top NASA administrator said here Wednesday that the European Space Agency will help build a key piece of NASA’s new heavy-lift launch system. The Europeans will work on the service module containing the propulsion system that maneuvers the Orion crew capsule in space, according to Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

Speaking to a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Gerstenmaier cited Europe’s contribution as an example of international cooperation in space exploration. “This is new, and this is significant,” council chairman Dr. Steven Squyres said in a late-afternoon discussion period after Gerstenmaier had left. “Not the entire service module but big chunks of it (are) coming from a European party,” Squyres said.

The arrangement, which has been under discussion for some time, became possible Nov. 21, when Great Britain agreed to contribute 20 million Euros, according to press and Internet reports. That allowed ESA’s ministerial council to approve the proposal. ESA will adapt its Automated Transfer Vehicle now supplying the station.

Press reports say the module will take the place of Europe’s requirement to support the International Space Station financially in the period between 2017 and 2020. It also allows Europe to keep a hand in NASA’s journey beyond low-Earth orbit.

An advisory council member said at least some of the work ESA will do had been part of Lockheed Martin’s piece of the Space Launch System, which is NASA’s name for the new rocket system. The heavy-lift booster part of the system is being developed at Marshall, and Lockheed is continuing to develop the Orion crew capsule itself. Exactly what Europe will do and what America will do wasn’t immediately clear. Early reports from Europe seemed to say ESA will build the entire module, but Squyres’ remark and other comments on the advisory panel seemed to suggest some work will stay with American contractors.

The NASA Advisory Council is the umbrella group providing advice to the NASA administrator based on the work of eight committees headed by council members. The council meets throughout the year at various centers and will be meeting in Huntsville through Friday morning. Meetings are being held in the headquarters building at Marshall.

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Article source: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/11/europe_will_help_build_key_spa.html

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NASA Advisory Council Information Technology Infrastructure …

By alkaon on June 26, 2012 No Comments

[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 123 (Tuesday, June 26, 2012)] [Notices] [Pages 38092-38093] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2012-15571]

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[Notice 12-048]

NASA Advisory Council; Information Technology Infrastructure Committee; Meeting

AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

ACTION: Notice of meeting.

SUMMARY: In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Public Law 92-462, as amended, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces a meeting of the Information Technology Infrastructure Committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC). This Committee reports to the NAC. The meeting will be held for the purpose of soliciting from the information technology community and other persons, IT-related information relevant to program planning.

DATES: Tuesday, July 24, 2012, 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., local time.

ADDRESSES: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Building 28, Room E210, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Karen Harper, Office of the Chief Information Officer, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, (202) 358-1807, fax (202) 358-3017, or karen.l.harper@nasa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The meeting will be open to the public up to the capacity of the room. This meeting is also available telephonically. Any interested person may call the USA toll free conference call number (866) 818-0788, participant pass code 9453583, to participate in this meeting by telephone. The agenda for the meeting includes the following topics:

NASA’s role in the Cross-Agency Big Data Federal Initiative.

Discussion on report to the NASA Advisory Council.

It is imperative that the meeting be held on these dates to accommodate the scheduling priorities of the key participants. All attendees will be requested to sign a register and to comply with NASA security requirements. Visitors must show a valid State or Federal issued picture ID, green card, or passport, before receiving an access badge to enter into GFSC and must state that they are attending the NAC Information Technology Infrastructure Committee meeting in Building 28. All U.S. citizens and green card holders desiring to attend must provide their full name, company affiliation (if applicable), and citizenship to Karen Harper via email at karen.l.harper@nasa.gov or by telephone at (202) 358-1807 no later than the close of business July 16, 2012. Foreign Nationals must provide the following information: full name, gender, date/place of birth, citizenship, home address, visa information (number, type, expiration date), passport information (number, country of issue, expiration date), employer/affiliation information (name of institution, title/position, address, country of employer, telephone, email address), and an electronically scanned or faxed copy of their passport and visa to Karen Harper via email at karen.l.harper@nasa.gov or by fax at (202) 358-3017 no later than close of business July 11, 2012. If the above information is not received by the noted dates, attendees should expect a minimum delay of two (2) hours. All visitors to this meeting will report to the GSFC Main Gate where they will be processed through security prior to entering GSFC. For security questions on the day of the meeting, please call Debbie Brasel at (301) 286-6876 or email Deborah.A.Brasel@nasa.gov.

Patricia D. Rausch, Advisory Committee Management Officer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. [FR Doc. 2012-15571 Filed 6-25-12; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7510-13-P

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Article source: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=41223

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NASA Asteroid Analog Mission Tackles Surface Mobility

By alkaon on June 22, 2012 No Comments

HOUSTON — NASA’s undersea analog missions — elaborate dress rehearsals that unite astronauts, scientists and engineers on the ocean floor to test hardware and mission operations strategies — are playing a crucial role in preparations for the next wave of human deep-space exploration, according to Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover mission and the current chair of the NASA Advisory Council.

Squyres is scheduled to surface June 22 from his second visit to the Aquarius Reef Base off Key Largo, Fla., an undersea habitat chosen by NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations (Neemo) to simulate a 12-day mission to a small asteroid.

“I feel what we are doing is extremely valuable,” Squyres said in a June 21 interview. “The problem we face is how do you do field work in microgravity. Asteroids are effectively a zero-g environment. No one knows how to do that. Hit a rock with a hammer and you will go flying. So we need completely new techniques for getting around and stabilizing yourself at a worksite.”

Two years ago, President Obama directed NASA to prepare for a human mission to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 and consider it a stepping stone to the Martian environs a decade later.

Squyres will emerge from the base – submerged 63 ft. below the Atlantic Ocean, just off Key Largo, Fla. – as part of a crew led by NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and also including European Space Agency astronaut Timothy Peake and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The analog mission, which marked the 16th Neemo excursion to Aquarius since 2001, focused on three areas: surface mobility and science sample collection, communication delays and optimum crew size.

Surface mobility at a tumbling, almost gravity-free near-Earth asteroid is a major obstacle. Astronauts working outside the International Space Station and the now-retired space shuttle rely on plentiful hand rails, rigid tethers and mobile foot restraints to anchor their torsos or legs so their hands are free for assembly or repair tasks. Training for their tightly choreographed spacewalks is carried out in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, an enclosed 4.2-million-gal. water tank managed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

“Asteroids don’t have handrails,” Squyres says of the asteroid challenge. “You can’t do an asteroid mission in [the NBL]. You need rocks, soil, sediment. You need a lot of room. So, the ocean is the obvious place to do it.”

During the latest undersea trial, Metcalf and her colleagues carried out 16 spacewalks, evaluating techniques for stringing tethers along the sea floor, gliding along with jet packs and coordinating “spacewalks” with small piloted submersibles that filled in for the multimission Space Exploration Vehicles (SEV) NASA is also developing for deep-space missions. A wheeled version of the SEV would roll across the surface of the Moon or Mars carrying at least two astronauts. A second version hovers over the surface of an asteroid while guided by small thrusters.

Article source: http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/asd_06_22_2012_p03-01-470049.xml

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NASA Image of the day

Curiosity at 'Cumberland'

 
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its front left Hazard-Avoidance Camera for this image of the rover's arm over the drilling target "Cumberland" during the 275th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (May 15, 2013). The rover team plans to use Curiosity's drill to collect a powdered sample from the interior of the rock for analysis by laboratory instruments inside the rover. This is the mission's second rock-drilling target. The rover drove from its position beside the first drilling target, "John Klein," to its position beside Cumberland with drives of 121 inches (308 centimeters) on Sol 273 (May 13) and 26.6 inches (67.5 centimeters) on Sol 275. Curiosity's total odometry on Mars is now 2,385 feet (727 meters). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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