Rebuild Life After Tragedy

Space Shuttle Columbia widow Evelyn Husband-Thomas is shown in this 2005 image as she stops to read the memorial plaque dedicated to the Columbia astronauts on Feb. 1, in downtown Houston. All seven astronauts died in the accident. Credit: AP Photo/Pat Sullivan.

This image of the STS-107 crew in orbit was recovered from wreckage inside an undeveloped film canister. The shirt color's indicate their mission shifts. From left (bottom row): Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; Rick Husband, commander; Laurel Clark, mission specialist; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist. From left (top row) are astronauts David Brown, mission specialist; William McCool, pilot; and Michael Anderson, payload commander. Ramon represents the Israeli Space Agency.


Five years after the loss of shuttle Columbia and seven astronauts, the widow of mission commander Rick Husband is striving to turn tragedy into triumph.

Evelyn Husband-Thompson remarried in early January during an emotional ceremony attended by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and several members of the astronaut corps.

Her daughter, Laura, is 17 and a high school senior who soon will be deciding what college she'll be attending in the fall. Just like her dad, her passion is music. She is a talented singer who also plays piano.

Son Matthew, 12, is a sixth-grader and a brilliant student who wants to be an engineer, just like his dad. He wants to be an "aerospace architect" and design moon bases.

Life is relatively good, but returning to Kennedy Space Center today — the fifth anniversary of the February 2003 accident — is going to be hard.

"You know, it's not going to be a cakewalk by any stretch,"
Husband-Thompson said. "But we're going to be surrounded by people who love us and care and shared our grief, and that makes a huge difference."

Husband-Thompson and her children were at the KSC shuttle runway the day Columbia and its crew — which also included pilot Willie McCool and mission specialists Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon of Israel — were lost during an ill-fated atmospheric re-entry.

Serious wing damage that went undetected during a 16-day science mission led to the shuttle's disintegration over Texas and Louisiana 16 minutes before a planned landing at the Florida runway.

Husband-Thompson and her kids were beaming in a photo taken in front of a countdown clock at the landing strip 11 minutes and 21 seconds before the scheduled touchdown. She believed her husband, their dad, was almost home.

What followed was a devastating emotional blow. The fate of the crew became apparent and she felt a shocking, heart-pounding numbness.

"I mean, this is not something that's ever going to be gone. We are forever changed by this, and everybody has to find their own way in life on their grief journey," Husband-Thompson said.

"You know, all of us (the Columbia families) have sought to not let this define the rest of our lives but maybe refine who we are and absolutely honor our family member."

Husband-Thomas will be the keynote speaker at a memorial ceremony today at the Astronaut Memorial "Space Mirror" at the KSC Visitor Complex. Griffin will be there along with former NASA astronaut Eileen Collins and a host of other senior NASA leaders.

It won't be the first time Husband-Thompson has been back. She came to both the STS-121 launch and landing back in July 2006. The mission was commanded by Steve Lindsey, who served as the family's "casualty assistance officer" after the accident and has since become the agency's chief astronaut.

"Landing was extremely painful. I did not even get off the bus to the landing strip before I was crying very hard," she said.

"Laura and I just sat there for a long time after the shuttle landed and just had to take it all in. It just looked so easy, and I know it's not," she said.

"But it was just very hard to watch and wonder why it couldn't have gone that way with Columbia. But it didn't."

Husband-Thompson came back last October, too, to see family friend Scott Parazynski — who ushered at her wedding along with Lindsey — launch aboard shuttle Discovery.

She and the man who would soon become her spouse — Bill Thompson — sat on a bench in front of the Space Mirror memorial and she cried for about a half-hour. Thompson held her the whole time.

"It was glorious because I was anonymous," Husband-Thompson said.

"I wasn't in a ceremony. Nobody was looking at me. There were some people looking at the memorial, but they didn't know who I was," she said. "I was thankful I had the time and the place to do that � where I didn't have a whole bunch of people staring at me."

Husband-Thompson will return to the memorial today. An ordinary mom thrust into extraordinary circumstances, she'll detail her journey during the past five years — a walk through the valley of the shadow of death, one in which she feared no evil because God was with her.

"It's just a true statement about how God has walked us through such phenomenal grief and how there is triumph that can come out of tragedy," she said. "Laura, Matthew and I are all three standing and proving that."

Orbital Traffic for Space Station

he Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is prepared to be loaded with Russian propellants at its European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

This artist's concept, featuring an older space station configuration, depicts ESA's Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle arriving at the ISS.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is set to launch toward the space station as early as Feb. 22 between a pair of U.S. shuttle missions hauling new modules to the orbital laboratory.

"We've been developing this vehicle for more than 12 years now and we're within touching distance of getting it on orbit," said Alan Thirkettle, the ESA's station program manager, in a Thursday briefing. "We're very excited."

But before the new spacecraft lifts off, astronauts aboard the space station must cast off a spent Russian cargo ship on Feb. 4, then welcome fresh one on Feb. 7 — the same day NASA's shuttle Atlantis is due to haul the ESA's Columbus lab toward the ISS.

The ATV, christened Jules Verne, has a narrow window to dock at the ISS between Atlantis' 11-day mission and the planned March flight of the shuttle Endeavour to deliver the first segment of Japan's Kibo laboratory.

"Things really start to stack up," said NASA's station program manager Mike Suffredini, adding that another Russian spacecraft and a shuttle hauling the centerpiece of Kibo are also due at the outpost in April. "In fact, we've been talking to the crews about being some sort of air traffic controllers; we're just going to have so many vehicles on or around ISS."

Suffredini said that if the ESA's Jules Verne ATV performs flawlessly during its two-week shakedown, NASA may delay Endeavour's planned March 11 launch to allow the cargo ship to dock at the ISS on March 15.

"The key to our success is going to be flexibility amongst all the spacecraft that are coming to the ISS," he added.

Jules Verne's shakedown cruise

The Jules Verne ATV is the first of five ESA cargo ships built to launch fresh supplies to the ISS as payment for European experiments, hardware and astronaut slots on future crews.

"Five flights in total will cover us in our obligations out until 2015," Thirkettle said.

The 1.3 billion-euro ($1.9-billion) ATV is a 20-ton spacecraft capable of hauling a maximum of 7.5 tons of cargo — three times that of Russian supply ships — to the ISS inside its cylindrical shell.

"We're going to be the largest carrier of cargo to the International Space Station," said John Ellwood, ATV project manager.

The first ATV mission will launch atop an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. It is expected to run about 15 days, which includes the 10-day flight to the station and a series of demonstration days to test its autonomous docking and collision avoidance systems.

The spacecraft uses an optical rendezvous system that relies on lasers to guide its approach and docking. Astronauts aboard the station won't be able to take remote control, as they can with Russian spacecraft, but could press a red button that would back Jules Verne away should it stray off-course.

If all goes well, the cargo ship could dock as early as March 15, or else take up a holding pattern and rendezvous at the ISS after the Endeavour shuttle flight, ESA officials said.

"We are, I think, very ready to embark on the Jules Verne operations," said Bob Chesson, ESA human spaceflight and operations chief. "We're just waiting now to get the go-ahead."

Europe Sets Launch Plan for First Unmanned Cargo Ship

src="http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/h_ATV-JV_approach_02.jpg">
Artist's impression showing an ATV docking with the International Space Station.


The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) in the ESA's acoustic test facility (LEAF).

PARIS - Europe's large unmanned space tug is undergoing final preparations for a maiden flight to the International Space Station sometime between Feb. 22 and March 9, with docking at the station likely to occur during windows of March 15-19 or March 30-April 5, program managers said Tuesday.

At a briefing at European Space Agency (ESA) headquarters here, ESA and industry officials said the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), has passed most of its key pre-launch milestones at Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana.

The ATV is designed to carry food, water, fuel and other supplies to the space station once every 18 months or so. It will also reboost the station into its operating orbit. Flying at between 217 and 267 miles (350 and 430 km) in altitude, the station gradually loses altitude because of the force of the Earth's gravity and because of atmospheric drag at that altitude.

The ATV has three times the cargo capacity of Russia's Progress vehicle and is being developed by ESA as part of a barter arrangement with NASA. Instead of paying cash for its share of the station's common operating costs, and also to secure additional astronaut access, ESA is providing ATV and other gear.

So far, ESA nations have spent some 1.3 billion euros ($1.9 billion) on developing the ATV, a figure that includes the first launch. The agency currently plans to build four other ATVs, with the second due for launch in 2010 - assuming the first flight occurs without a hitch.

For this first ATV, called Jules Verne, ESA, NASA and Russia's Roskosmos space agency have agreed on a go-slow approach as the 42,108-pound (19,100-kg) tug, operating automatically, nears the station and docks to it.

To be sure the vehicle responds to commands, it will be ordered to stop at various distances from the station, then withdraw and wait for further instructions.

Program managers estimate that following ATV's launch aboard a specially designed European Ariane 5 rocket, it will take about 10 days for the vehicle to climb to the station's orbiting altitude.

Depending on the traffic at the station, ATV may be sent into a parking orbit to wait for the U.S. space shuttle, or a Russian Progress vehicle, or a Russian Soyuz manned capsule to complete its mission at the station and depart.

John Ellwood, ESA's ATV mission manager, said ATV operations require the use of NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, TDRSS, whose capacity will be fully used during shuttle launches. The next shuttle launch, of Europe's Columbus space station laboratory, is currently scheduled for Feb. 7.

ATV's need for TDRSS is minimal if the vehicle is parked at a safe distance from the station while waiting for a docking opportunity, Ellwood said, meaning that the launch date is not directly dependent on whether the Feb. 7 shuttle launch is further delayed.

In addition to needing to steer clear of other traffic to and from the station, ATV's rendezvous and docking schedule is governed by the position of the sun relative to both ATV and the station, Ellwood said.

ATV's final approach to the station is guided by lasers. Ellwood said mission managers want to avoid having direct sunlight in front of the vehicle as it chases the station to avoid confusing the laser guidance.

In addition, the station's astronauts will be monitoring the approach of ATV using a small camera mounted on board the station. To maintain a clear view, the maneuver must occur when the sun is not shining directly into the camera, Ellwood said.

Approaching Asteroid: First images

This radar image of 2007 TU24 was taken on Jan. 28, 2008 using the Arecibo Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope and has a resolution of about 7.5 meters per pixel, and is a sum of 3 minutes of data.

These low-resolution radar images of asteroid 2007 TU24 were taken over a few hours by the Goldstone Solar System Radar Telescope in California's Mojave Desert. Image resolution is about 20-meters per pixel.

High quality

Astronomers have obtained the first images of an asteroid on course to make its closest approach to Earth Tuesday, showing the space rock is lopsided.

The new images, taken with the Goldstone Solar System Radar Telescope in California's Mojave Desert, refine estimates of the asteroid's size. Named 2007 TU24, the asteroid was estimated to span up to 2,000 feet (610 meters), but is now thought to have a diameter of about 800 feet (250 meters).

Scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have determined that there is no possibility of an impact with Earth in the foreseeable future.

As the asteroid moved nearer to Earth, on Jan. 28, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico working with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in W. Va. produced another image of the asteroid. Astronomers used the Arecibo telescope, which is operated by Cornell University on behalf of the National Science Foundation, to bounce radar signals off the asteroid. The Green Bank Telescope received the echo signal and transmitted the data back to Arecibo to be transformed into an image.

Other radar telescopes were expected to point toward the asteroid as it made its closest approach to Earth, 334,000 miles (537,500 kilometers), at 3:33 a.m. Eastern time Jan. 29. For comparison, the moon is an average of 239,228 miles (385,000 kilometers) away.

At its nearest, the asteroid will reach an approximate apparent magnitude 10.3, or about 50 times fainter than an object visible to the naked eye in a clear, dark sky. Then, it will quickly get fainter as it moves away.

The combination of these telescopes will provide higher resolution images of the asteroid. Measurements from Arecibo's radar telescope will gauge the object's size more precisely, its speed and spin.

Like other asteroids, this one orbits the sun. Most do so in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA pays particular attention to those whose orbits bring them so close to Earth.

TU24, discovered by NASA's Catalina Sky Survey on Oct. 11, 2007, is one of an estimated 7,000 near-Earth objects identified to date (another 7,000 are estimated to exist but are yet to be discovered).

"We have good images of a couple dozen objects like this, and for about one in 10, we see something we've never seen before," said Mike Nolan, head of radar astronomy at the Arecibo Observatory. "We really haven't sampled the population enough to know what's out there."

Killer Space Rock Theory Is Soaking Wet

Researchers speculate a giant fragment produced by a collision between two asteroids smashed into Earth 65 million years ago, creating the Chicxulub crater off the coast of the Yucatan.

Dinosaur doomsday was wetter than scientists have thought, according to new images of the crater where the space rock that likely killed the jumbo reptiles landed.

Sixty-five million years ago the asteroid struck the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, and most scientists think this event played a large role in causing the extinction of 70 percent of life on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs.

Geophysicists now have created the most detailed 3-D seismic images yet of the mostly submerged Chicxulub impact crater. The data reveal that the asteroid landed in deeper water than previously assumed and therefore released about 6.5 times more water vapor into the atmosphere.

The images also show the crater contained sulfur-rich sediments that would have reacted with the water vapor to create sulfate aerosols. These compounds in the atmosphere would have made the impact deadlier by cooling the climate and producing acid rain.

"The greater amount of water vapor and consequent potential increase in sulfate aerosols needs to be taken into account for models of extinction mechanisms," said Sean Gulick, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin who led the study.

The findings will be published in the February 2008 issue of the journal Nature Geosciences.

The asteroid impact alone was probably not responsible for the mass extinction, Gulick said. More likely, a combination of environmental changes over different time scales took their toll.

Many large land animals, including the dinosaurs, might have baked to death within hours or days of the impact as ejected material fell from the sky, heating the atmosphere and setting off firestorms. More gradual changes in climate and acidity might have had a larger impact in the oceans.

If there was more acid rain than scientists had previously calculated, that could help explain why many smaller marine creatures were affected, because the rain could have turned the oceans more acidic.

There is some evidence that marine organisms more resistant to a range of pH survived, while more sensitive creatures did not.

China May Broadcast First Spacewalk Live

Future flights of China's Shenzhou spaceship will include space walks - a prelude to rendezvous and docking in Earth orbit.

This photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency shows Chinese astronauts Fei Junlong, left, and Nie Haisheng sit beside the re-entry capsule of China's second manned spacecraft, Shenzhou 6, after landing in Siziwang Banner County, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Monday, Oct. 17, 2005.


BEIJING (AP) - China's space program is considering a live broadcast of the first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut, reflecting growing confidence in the program's capabilities, state media reported Friday.

The first spacewalk is scheduled to take place after the Beijing Summer Olympics in August during the country's third manned mission.

Yuan Jie, president of Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying a live broadcast was being considered but no decision had been made.

"The Shenzhou 7 spacecraft is capable of live broadcasting the walk, but it has not been decided if the spacewalk will be broadcast in a live or recorded version,'" Xinhua quoted Yuan as saying.

China's space program is the focus of immense national pride, and officials have announced ever more ambitious plans to explore the moon and build a space station since the program first put a man into orbit in 2003.

China sent an unmanned space ship to orbit the moon last year, the first step in a three-stage lunar exploration project. A manned lunar voyage is planned for sometime after 2017.

While live images of previous missions have been beamed to schools and viewers across China, broadcasts are usually pre-taped to guard against mishaps.

High-Energy X-Rays Detected at Galaxy Cluster

Shockwaves travel through hot gas (in red) as two galaxy clusters collide and merge.

A distant galaxy cluster has turned into a giant particle accelerator, spinning electrons over vast distances at high speeds.

Scientists discovered this phenomenon by observing highly energetic X-rays emanating from the Ophiuchus cluster of galaxies.

The European Space Agency's orbiting gamma-ray observatory Integral detected the X-rays, which are too energetic to originate from the inert gas in the cluster and must instead come from accelerated particles.

Previous observations have been able to detect only lower-energy radio waves released in other clusters-turned-particle accelerators.

"This is the first time we have detected significant high-energy X-ray radiation from a cluster," said Stephane Paltani, an astrophysicist at Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, who was involved in the finding. "Only now are we reaching the sensitivity that we need to detect this radiation."

The Ophiuchus cluster must have recently merged with a smaller galaxy cluster, Paltani said. The collision would have mixed the gases in each cluster, producing rippling shock waves. As electrons bounced back and forth in the chaotic merger, they likely picked up energy and accelerated.

This cosmic particle accelerator is 20 times more powerful than the largest man-made atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider being constructed at CERN, the particle physics lab in Switzerland, Paltani said.

"Of course the Ophiuchus cluster is somewhat bigger," Paltani said. "While LHC is 27 kilometers [17 miles] across, the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster is over two million light-years in diameter."

The scientists don't know for sure why the sped-up electrons release X-rays, but there are two possibilities. Perhaps the electrons created synchrotron radiation, which is produced when charged particles fly though magnetic fields. Or maybe the electrons collided with the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation left over in the universe from the big bang. When the sped-up particles hit the radiation they would have given it an energy boost, pumping its frequency up to the X-ray range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

New observations will be needed to tell which scenario occurred, the scientists said.

"These findings will help us better understand the properties of these clusters," Paltani told LiveScience. "This has important consequences for the history of the cluster itself. We will be able to put constraints on when the particle acceleration takes place and understand better what happens when these clusters merge."

Female Figure on Mars Just a Rock !!!

NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this westward view from atop a low plateau where Sprit spent the closing months of 2007. Several bloggers and other enthusiasts have pointed to a tiny structure (red circle) on the Martian surface as a human figure and thus evidence of life on Mars.



In the bottom right hand corner of this NASA image, you can make out what is shaped like a lizard wearing goggles. NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this westward view from atop a low plateau where Sprit spent the closing months of 2007.


The idea that there may be life on Mars has been around for centuries, but the theory got a dubious boost from recently released photos of the surface of Mars (taken by the NASA robot Spirit) apparently showing a human-like figure. Several Internet sites have glommed onto the image and suggested the figure could be alive.

But what is it? Just a rock, astronomers say.

It's hard enough to accurately recognize figures and faces across the room. Mars, depending on when you measure it, is about 35 million miles away. The best telescopes aren't of much help in determining surface features, and that's why NASA sent robots with cameras to Mars.

The reason many people see a figure on the Martian landscape is the same reason that people see faces in clouds, Rorschach blots, and coffee stains. This phenomenon, called pareidolia, is well known in psychology, and it is the cause of many supposedly mysterious and miraculous events (including the famous "Jesus in the Tortilla"). Examples are all around us; in fact if you have a New Hampshire state quarter, you have pareidolia in your pocket or purse (take a look).

Strong evidence for this psychological explanation lies in the fact that the Spirit image does not look like Martian life (since we don't know what life on Mars looks like), but instead resembles life here on Earth, specifically human life. The image is the result of human interpretation. If you look around the full image of the area (not just the close-up), you will find several rocks and features that resemble non-human Earth life, such as armadillos and snakes. In the right bottom corner, emerging from the sand, there is what looks like a lizard face wearing goggles and an airman's helmet.

This is of course not the first time that NASA images have been claimed to show evidence of Martian life. A man named Richard Hoagland claimed that 1976 photographs of the Cydonia region of Mars showed a human-like face and was clear evidence of aliens.

According to astronomer Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy Web site, if the image really is of a man on Mars, he's awfully small: "Talk about a tempest in a teacup!" Plait said. "The rock on Mars is actually just a few inches high and a few yards from the camera. A few million years of Martian winds sculpted it into an odd shape, which happens to look like, well, a Bigfoot! It's just our natural tendency to see familiar shapes in random objects."

Even though logic and science suggest that the image is of a rock and not an animal, UFO buffs and conspiracy theorists will continue to speculate.

In fact, it will actually be pretty easy to determine whether or not the image is of alien life. In later photographs of the area, either the same shape will be there or it won't. If it is, it's a rock (unless, of course, little Martian men can hold the same pose for weeks or months at a time).

This is exactly how the "Face on Mars" was eventually disproven. On April 5, 1998, the Mars Global Surveyor took photographs of the same region in far higher resolution than was possible in 1976. The new images clearly showed an area heavily eroded, and that the "face" was simply the result of low image quality, pareidolia, and tricks of light and shadow. Hoagland's theory was discredited.

Just don't tell that to the creepy, goggle-wearing Martian sand lizard.

Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. He is author or co-author of three books on skepticism and science literacy. They can be found on his website.

Astronaut Survey Finds no Evidence of Launch Day Drinking

NASA administrator Michael Griffin, right, listens as Bryan O'Connor, a former astronaut and shuttle accident investigator, speaks during a news conference at NASA headquarters in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007 to announce that in a review released Wednesday, no evidence was found that astronauts were drunk or had been drinking heavily before any space launch.


A survey of NASA astronauts and flight surgeons has turned up no evidence that U.S. spaceflyers were drunk on launch day and revealed a desire for more transparency in how crews are selected for spaceflight.

The anonymous survey, released Wednesday, did find one report of "perceived impairment" in an astronaut in the days before liftoff, which was later was traced to an interaction between prescription medication and alcohol, said former shuttle astronaut Ellen Ochoa, NASA's deputy director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In that account, the astronaut was ultimately cleared for flight and launched into space, agency health officials added.

NASA health officials said that they did not know if the incident was one of two anecdotal accounts claiming that a spaceflyer was drunk just hours before launch. The claims, one related to a shuttle flight and the other to a Russian Soyuz mission, were included in an independent panel review of astronaut health released last year.

"We really never understood from the beginning exactly what might have led to the comment in the health care report," Ochoa said Wednesday. "We have tried to run it to ground. We haven't uncovered anything. I don't know of any issues associated with alcohol before flight."

NASA regulations prohibit the use of alcohol within 12 hours of launch time. The policy, initially an unofficial guideline adapted from its T-38 jet flight rules, was officially adopted for human spaceflight last year. The agency's astronaut corps is also putting the finishing touches on its own code of conduct manual, Ochoa said.

NASA commissioned the anonymous survey in the wake of a report last July by an independent astronaut health review led by U.S. Air Force Col. Richard Bachmann, Jr., which itself was spurred by the arrest February 2007 of the now former spaceflyer Lisa Nowak. Nowak was charged with the attempted kidnapping and burglary with assault of a romantic rival for a fellow astronaut's affections. She has pleaded not guilty and her attorney plans to pursue a temporary insanity defense.

Bachmann's review panel reported some accounts of astronauts and flight surgeons who felt their concerns over the anecdotal drinking claims were disregarded by their managers.

But in the new survey, those polled indicated that astronauts and flight surgeons had a healthy relationship, and were unafraid to bring up safety concerns with their superiors. The survey polled all 31 of NASA's current flight surgeons and 87 of the 98 active astronauts between August and December of last year.

"The response rate of the survey was 91 percent, a rate well above what you would normally expect in a survey," Ochoa said. "That indicates the seriousness with which astronauts and flight surgeons approached this survey."

One recurring theme among astronauts who took the survey was the desire for a better understanding of how feedback on a spaceflyer's technical skills or performance is affects career decisions and crew assignments, space agency officials said.

"We have taken their opinions and recommendations and are formulating the way forward on this issue," Ochoa said.

The data culled from the new survey will allow NASA to better monitor the health needs of its astronaut corps, she added.

"We kind of think of the human as one of the critical systems on board the spacecraft, and just like we try to assess the performance and reliability of any system, we need to do that with the humans on board, too," Ochoa said. "They are critical in carrying out the mission of whatever it is that we are trying to do."

Meanwhile, members of Congress said NASA must still remain vigilant to address the concerns raised by Bachmann's independent panel, and any new items stemming from the recent survey.

"While the anonymous survey released today provides some useful data, NASA's action plan for addressing the problems identified last year is still unavailable," said Congressman Mark Udall (D-Colo.), chairman of the space and aeronautics subcommittee, in a statement. "NASA needs to provide that plan expeditiously if Congress is to be confident that NASA is serious about dealing with concerns raised by Col. Bachmann and others, and I intend to press NASA to do so."

A Whole New View: Hubble Overhaul to Boost Telescope's Reach

When astronauts overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope this summer, they will leave behind a vastly more powerful orbital observatory to scan the universe.

Set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis on Aug. 7, the Hubble servicing mission will be the fifth — and final — sortie to upgrade the aging space telescope.

"We're not only going up to Hubble to refurbish it, but also to expand its grasp tremendously," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, in a recent briefing. "We expect to make the very best discoveries of the entire two-decade plus Hubble program with the new instruments to be installed."



NASA's Hubble Space Telescope maintains its orbit around Earth. The space agency hopes to upgrade the aging observatory some time in August 2008.

Astronauts Steven Smith, and John Grunsfeld, appear as small figures in this wide scene photographed during an STS-103 extravehicular activity (EVA) to service the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999.

The Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera-3 undergoes integration and testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Hubble Space Telescope's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is subjected to integration and testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.




A deeper look

In addition to performing vital repairs, astronauts will add two new instruments to Hubble's observation platform — Wide Field Camera-3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph — that will drastically boost its vision range.

"This refurbished Hubble [will be] a new telescope," said astronomer Sandra Faber of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We estimate that at the end of this repair Hubble will be 90 times more powerful than when it was first launched."

That means that Hubble will be able to see at least 90 times more objects in deep space than it could when it was deployed in April 1990, she added.

With its ability to scan the universe at wavelengths ranging from the near-infrared, visible spectrum to the near-ultraviolet, the new Wide Field Camera-3 should allow Hubble to see objects that formed fewer than 800 million years after the beginning of the universe.

"To follow galaxy formation to times that are even earlier than this, we need a camera that can take sharp pictures efficiently at longer wavelengths," Faber said. "And that's exactly what Wide Field Camera-3 is going to do."

The new camera has better resolution than its Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 predecessor and a wider field of view than Hubble's current NICMOS spectrometer, and could reveal objects that formed when the universe was just 400 or 500 million years old, she added.

"A difference like this makes a huge difference in the structure and formation of the galaxies that we'll see," Faber said. Astronomers currently estimate that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old.

Hubble's new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, meanwhile, will scan the universe in the ultraviolet range with about 10 times more sensitivity than the observatory's current tools.

"I believe it's the most sensitive UV spectroscopic capability ever to fly in space for astronomical purposes," said Hubble senior project scientist David Leckrone of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "It's designed, because it's so sensitive, to go as deep as possible out across the universe as fast as possible."

Researchers hope the new spectrograph will map the so-called cosmic web, the universe's large-scale structure made up of strands of galaxies that branch out in three dimensions like an astronomical spider's web.

"It is amazing to me how we've been able to reinvent the Hubble Space Telescope with each of these missions," said astronaut John Grunsfeld, who will serve as the lead spacewalker for the telescope's last overhaul.

Full power ahead

Hubble service astronauts will also replace failed gyroscopes, fine guidance sensor and aged batteries, and make unprecedented repairs to the space telescope's main camera and a vital spectrograph.

"When the astronauts leave Hubble for the last time, it will be at the apex of its capabilities," said Leckrone. "It will be the first time since 1993 that there will be five working instruments aboard."

Spacewalkers will replace Hubble's cracked thermal insulation and replace each of its 16-year-old batteries among other hardware.

They will also repair the observatory's Space Telescope Imaging Spectroscope and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), both of which were never designed to be fixed in orbit. Spacewalkers will remove more than 111 tiny screws to repair the two units.

"The good news is we're going to try and repair ACS. The bad news is we've never done it before," said Grunsfeld. "It's very tricky."

Grunsfeld and his six crewmates plan to stage five spacewalks to service Hubble during their STS-125 mission. NASA initially canceled the spaceflight following the 2003 Columbia tragedy, but later reinstated the mission after a detailed risk analysis.

The result, researchers said, is about five extra years of science for Hubble before its controlled deorbit sometime after 2020. To prepare for the space telescope's eventual demise, spacewalkers will also attach a connecting port that will allow a robotic tug to dock with Hubble.

"None of us could have imagined what this fourth-generation suite of instruments can do," said Stern, adding the 90-fold jump in observation power for Hubble will be unprecedented. "We will have the capability, literally, of approximately 100 Hubbles [circa] 1990 when this mission is done."

Sun’s Magnetic Secret Revealed

This image clearly shows an x-ray jet launching plasma out into the solar system from the Sun’s north polar coronal hole. This image was taken 10 January 2007 by Hinode’s X-ray telescope.


Powerful magnetic waves have been confirmed for the first time as major players in the process that makes the sun's atmosphere strangely hundreds of times hotter than its already superhot surface.

The magnetic waves — called Alfven waves — can carry enough energy from the sun's active surface to heat its atmosphere, or corona.

"The surface and corona are chock full of these things, and they're very energetic," said Bart de Pontieu, a physicist at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in California.

The sun contains powerful heating and magnetic forces which drive the temperature to tens of thousands of degrees at the surface — yet the quieter corona wreathing the sun reaches temperatures of millions of degrees. Scientists have speculated that Alfven waves act as energy conveyor belts to heat the sun's atmosphere, but lacked the observational evidence to prove their theories.

De Pontieu and his colleagues changed that by using the Japanese orbiting solar observatory Hinode to peer at the region sandwiched between the sun's surface and corona, called the chromosphere. Not only did they spot many Alfven waves, but they also estimated the waves carried more than enough energy to sustain the corona's temperatures as well as to power the solar wind (charged particles that constantly stream out from the sun) to speeds of nearly 1 million mph.

However, the chromosphere findings alone could not prove the waves carried their energy into the sun's atmosphere.

"If you observe waves in the chromosphere, that doesn't mean they can get to the corona," De Pontieu told SPACE.com.

Some waves may get reflected back down to the sun instead of passing through the transition region between the surface and atmosphere. Waves that reach the corona also become more difficult to detect using current instruments, thanks to the long line-of-sight.

De Pontieu's group turned to researchers at the University of Oslo, Norway, who had created a computer simulation representing part of the sun. Once they knew what to look for, the researchers found magnetic waves within the simulation of the corona that strongly resembled the Alfven waves directly observed in the chromosphere.

Even as the simulations helped establish Alfven waves as energy carriers for the sun's atmosphere and solar wind, the new observational findings will help modelers create improved sun simulations.

"It goes back and forth — we learn from simulations, they learn from us," said De Pontieu.

Many mysteries remain about the sun's restless activities. De Pontieu's group focused on Alfven waves generated by the sun's heat turbulence, but other researchers examined Alfven waves generated when the sun's magnetic field lines stress and snap back together like invisible magnets. That reconnection force also creates jets of X-rays that shoot outwards from the sun, as captured by Hinode's instruments.

Scientists still don't know which source of Alfven waves plays a more important role in the heating the sun's atmosphere, but can use the latest findings as a stepping stone.

"We need to study both more, to see which one dominates," noted De Pontieu. "But it's nice for people to know that Alfven waves can do the job."

India Launches Israeli Radar Satellite

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel's first 24-hour, all-weather, high-resolution radar satellite — dubbed TechSAR — was inserted into orbit Jan. 21 by an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

The launch, from the Sriharikota test site on the Bay of Bengal in southeast India, marked the seventh successful orbital insertion for the four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and the first cooperative satellite launch between Israel and its principal export customer, defense and industry officials here said.

According to state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI), Israel's sole satellite producing firm, the first signals from the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft reached the operational ground control station near IAI headquarters some 80 minutes after launch. ''By all indications so far, the satellite is functioning properly,'' IAI announced.

In a Jan. 21 statement, IAI said company engineers began what will be an extensive, nearly month-long series of in-orbit tests to verify satellite performance. First images from TechSAR are scheduled to be collected in about two weeks.

Israel's Ministry of Defense and its national intelligence agencies will be the primary customers of the day-, night- and all-weather imagery generated by the TechSAR payload, which was developed by Elta Systems Ltd., an IAI subsidiary. Despite the strategic intelligence-gathering mission assigned to the nationally-funded TechSAR, Israel's Ministry of Defense did not provide a statement on the launch and referred all queries to IAI.

''We're all very proud of this achievement, which serves as additional proof of IAI's great technological and administrative capabilities, and of IAI's leadership in the Israeli space industry,'' noted Itzhak Nissan, IAI's president and chief executive officer.

TechSAR's successful launch follows repeated technical and weather-related delays. The Israeli satellite was delivered to the Indian launch facility by summer 2007 and had completed integration testing on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in time for a fall 2007 launch. However, due to circumstances that neither IAI nor the Indian launch provider was willing to discuss publicly, the satellite was removed from its launch vehicle and held in storage until several weeks before the Jan. 21 launch.

Next Space Tourist Begins Training for Spaceflight

American computer game developer Richard Garriott floats in weightlessness inside a Russian Sokol spacesuit during a airplane ride to celebrate the upcoming release of his new game 'Tabula Rasa.'


An American space tourist bound for the International Space Station (ISS) has begun training for his fall launch aboard a Russian rocket.

Computer game developer Richard Garriott is spending six weeks in Russia to undergo initial medical checks and the first round of training for flight aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

"This year is definitely where all my priorities and schedules have rotated to where space becomes the top priority and terrestrial activities become secondary," Garriott told SPACE.com. "There's no aspect of the actual training that I perceive that's going to be scary or intimidating, I just look at it as going to be really smooth from here."

Garriott, 46, is paying about $30 million to launch to the ISS with two professional spaceflyers this fall under an agreement between Russia's Federal Space Agency and the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures. He is the creator of the Ultima series of online computer games and is contemplating $15 million spacewalk as an additional mission perk.

The son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, who flew aboard the U.S. Skylab station and a U.S. shuttle, the younger Garriott is set to become the first second-generation U.S. spaceflyer and the sixth paying visitor to the ISS during his mission.

"We have been having about five e-mails from each other a day," Garriott said of his father, who will serve as chief scientist for his upcoming flight. "My dad will even tell you this is the hardest he's worked since he left the space program."

Garriott plans to spend about nine days aboard the space station, during which time he will perform protein crystallization and Earth observation experiments, some of which include photographing sites his father observed from Skylab in 1973.

But before launching, Garriott must educate himself in the workings of Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the ISS, not to mention the Russian language.

"I've never learned a second language before," he said. "You just want to be able to participate fully and competently and enjoyably, and I'm gaining confidence that I can do that."

On Sunday, Garriott expected to meet with ISS Expedition 18 commander Michael Fincke, with whom he'll launch to the station later this year, as well as South Korean astronaut Ko San. Ko, South Korea's first astronaut, will launch toward the space station on April 8 with the outpost's Expedition 17 crew.

Garriott said he also hoped to meet with Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, commander of Expedition 17. Like Garriott, Volkov is a second-generation spaceflyer who, if all goes according to plan, will return to Earth with the U.S. space tourist later this fall.

"I'm really going to work hard to get a chance to meet him before he flies," Garriott said.

Richard Garriott is chronicling his spaceflight training and mission at his personal Web site: www.richardinspace.com.

Giuliani Pushes Space Program During Florida Visit

Republican presidential candidate, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, left, speaks to attendees of a space policy roundtable as wife Judith listens, in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Jan. 18, 2008.




PORT CANAVERAL - Space industry representatives heard magic words -- but few specifics -- from presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani after they explained that the U.S. faces a five-year gap in human spaceflight.

"This is not acceptable," said the Republican, on a multiday trek through Florida to boost his flagging status in the presidential race. "America should be No. 1 and shouldn't have to be dependent on other countries."

About 35 space industry leaders met with Giuliani early Friday evening in Port Canaveral to push their vision of a well-funded space industry. Later, the former New York City mayor appeared before 200 sign-waving supporters at the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum in Titusville.

Giuliani's audience at the port hopes his interest will make funding the space industry a national priority.

A lack of funding will leave a five-year "gap" between the end of the shuttle program in 2010 and the launch of the next generation space vehicle. During that time, U.S. astronauts will depend on Russian rockets to reach the International Space Station, which was largely funded with U.S. dollars.

"Our goal is, let's make sure we close this gap," Giuliani said after hearing the consequences of losing leadership in the space industry.

Among those painting a bleak picture:

* Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Mike Rein, who said that losing the lead in the space technology would be like an army losing the high ground during battle. "Militaries and nations win wars by owning the high ground," said Rein, now communications manager for United Launch Alliance. "Space is the high ground of the future, and we must own it at all times."



* Norman Bobczynski, director of launch operation for Space Exploration Corporation, who said the United States is fourth in the number of commercial launches worldwide. "This isn't about a nice campaign issue," Bobczynski said. "This is about a national crisis."

In Titusville, Giuliani touched on several topics, including his tax proposal and the military, which he said needs to be increased to stay on the offensive against terrorists and adversarial countries. He blasted declines made during the 1990s. "We have to make up for the so-called peace dividend," he said.

June Bair of Titusville wanted to hear Giuliani speak in person so she could make up her mind about him as a candidate. "When you hear (candidates), you get a lot different idea than when you hear them on TV," she said. She said she liked what she heard, particularly his tax plan.

Hours earlier, Giuliani toured Kennedy Space Center with his wife, Judith. He viewed shuttle Atlantis, scheduled for a Feb. 7 launch after a two-month delay. "It's remarkable to see it up close," Giuliani said. "The space program is one of America's remarkable achievements."

He noted that the U.S. had reached the moon with a bipartisan program that spanned both Democratic and Republican administrations. "We have to get back to that," he said.

Moonwalker Film to Raise Funds for Apollo Memorial

Apollo 12 lunar module pilot Alan Bean steps down to moon's surface during his 1969 flight.


The only astronauts to set foot on the moon will share tales of their journey Saturday in a film screening to raise funds for a monument to their Apollo lunar missions.

"The Wonder of it All" looks to understand the men who walked on the moon, instead of the science and technology behind the Apollo missions. The result is a highly personal and affecting history of the U.S. effort to send men to the moon.

"We're all about the guys," said Jeffrey Roth, director of the film. The film will screen at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla., to help raise funds for a monument honoring NASA's Apollo lunar program.

Many of the Apollo astronauts share early childhood fantasies of flying like sci-fi hero Buck Rogers, and later pursued careers as military pilots. Their eagerness to push limits meant they had to mentally prepare themselves for the risks and uncertainties of the space program, as those became evident during the infamous Apollo 1 fire and the Apollo 13 accident in space.

However, the astronaut experiences diverge more when they touch down on the lunar surface. Some moonwalkers ran around methodically to accomplish their assigned tasks. Others took the opportunity to conduct an impromptu "lunar Olympics" by bouncing up and down in the moon's one-sixth gravity, or hit a golf shot on camera.

"All of us needed to do more human things," said Alan Bean, lunar module pilot for Apollo 12, who regretted focusing too much on collecting moon rocks.

Yet Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, the second person ever to walk on the moon in 1969, took a moment to give thanks and pray under the blackness of space that astronauts described as beyond any darkness on Earth. Charlie Duke, of Apollo 16, left his family's photo in a clear plastic bag on the lunar soil.

Those human moments remain the most vivid impressions from "The Wonder of it All," particularly as the astronauts describe life following the Apollo program. Bean eventually left NASA to become an artist, turning his impressions as a moonwalker into vivid paintings. Fellow astronauts stayed on with NASA to work and consult, or entered politics.

The film also sheds some light on the less-joyful experiences of the Apollo program, such as returning astronauts being egged by student protesters or a personal struggle with alcoholism and depression.

By the end, astronauts reflect upon a spiritual experience in space that transcends the boundaries of human knowledge — and allows film viewers to appreciate that other component of the space program beyond rockets and spacecraft.

"Wonder of it All" is one in a series of recent films, which include "In the Shadow of the Moon" and "Magnificent Desolation," that focus on the personal stories of those few humans who set foot on the lunar surface.

"Science and technology could no longer explain what I was feeling," said Eugene Cernan, Apollo 17.

Report Cites Rocketship Builder in Explosion Inquiry

Artist's illustration of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo and drop-ship in flight.

Firefighters head out to an explosion that ultimately killed three people and critically injured three others,Thursday, July 26, 2007, at Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. The blast at a facility belonging to Scaled Composites LLC also left some toxic material, said Kern County fire Capt. Doug Johnston.

Dawn breaks in this new depiction of Spaceport America in New Mexico, the future home of Virgin Galactic's suborbital spaceliner fleet.


California safety inspectors have cited the private spaceflight company Scaled Composites in connection with an explosion that killed three of the firm's workers last July.

The citations, issued Thursday, faulted the Mojave, Calif.-based firm for failing to provide "effective information and training of the health and physical hazards associated with nitrous oxide," a compound used during a July 26 test that ended in an explosion, killing three employees and injured three others at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

"Scaled Composites regrets that this accident occurred, and we have expressed our condolences to the victims and their families and provided support during this difficult time," said Doug Shane, Scaled Composites executive vice president, adding that the firm cooperated fully with California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) during the investigation.

"And we continue to work with the agency so that the enhanced procedures already implemented promote the safest workplace conditions possible," Shane told SPACE.com.

Led by aerospace visionary Burt Rutan, Scaled built and flew the piloted, air-launched SpaceShipOne suborbital spacecraft three times in 2004, two of which launched within two weeks to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

The firm was conducting tests as part of the development for SpaceShipTwo, a larger spaceliner designed to carry space tourists to suborbital space for Virgin Galactic, when the deadly accident occurred last summer. According to Friday's report, Scaled faces up to $25,310 in fines for three citations.

"The company has 15 working days from date of issuance to pay the assessed fines or appeal them," Kate McGuire, a spokesperson with Cal/OSHA, told SPACE.com in a statement.

Like SpaceShipOne, the new SpaceShipTwo will be air-launched by a carrier craft. But the new craft is expected to carry up to eight people - two pilots and six passengers - at a time to an altitude of 68 miles (110 kilometers), where they would experience several minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth. Scaled and Virgin Galactic officials were working toward a planned rollout of SpaceShipTwo later this year and operational flights in 2009 when the accident occurred.

Virgin Galactic plans to stage its space tourist flights out of a central terminal at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

NASA's Next Rocket May Shake Too Much

An artist's rendition of Ares I being stacked in the vehicle assembly building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Houston-based Boeing won NASA's contract to built the rocket's upper stage, which appears in orange below the conical Orion crew capsule.

An artist's rendition of Ares I being stacked in the vehicle assembly building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Houston-based Boeing won NASA's contract to built the rocket's upper stage, which appears in orange below the conical Orion crew capsule.


WASHINGTON (AP) - NASA is wrestling with a potentially dangerous problem in a spacecraft, this time in a moon rocket that hasn't even been built yet.

Engineers are concerned that the new rocket meant to replace the space shuttle and send astronauts on their way to the moon could shake violently during the first few minutes of flight, possibly destroying the entire vehicle.

"They know it's a real problem,'' said Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Paul Fischbeck, who has consulted on risk issues with NASA in the past. "This thing is going to shake apart the whole structure, and they've got to solve it.''

If not corrected, the shaking would arise from the powerful first stage of the Ares I rocket, which will lift the Orion crew capsule into orbit.

NASA officials hope to have a plan for fixing the design as early as March, and they do not expect it to delay the goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.

"I hope no one was so ill-informed as to believe that we would be able to develop a system to replace the shuttle without facing any challenges in doing so,'' NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in a statement to The Associated Press. "NASA has an excellent track record of resolving technical challenges. We're confident we'll solve this one as well.''

Professor Jorge Arenas of the Institute of Acoustics in Valdivia, Chile, acknowledged that the problem was serious but said: "NASA has developed one of the safest and risk- controlled space programs in engineering history.''

The space agency has been working on a plan to return to the moon, at a cost of more than $100 billion, since 2005. It involves two different rockets: Ares I, which would carry the astronauts into space, and an unmanned heavy-lift cargo ship, Ares V.

The concern isn't the shaking on the first stage, but how it affects everything that sits on top: the Orion crew capsule, instrument unit, and a booster.

That first stage is comprised of five reusable solid rocket boosters derived from the type that NASA uses to launch the shuttle and would be built by ATK Launch Systems of Brigham City, Utah.

The shaking problem, which is common to solid rocket boosters, involves pulses of added acceleration caused by gas vortices in the rocket similar to the wake that develops behind a fast-moving boat, said Arenas, who has researched vibration and space-launch issues.

Those vortices happen to match the natural vibrating frequencies of the motor's combustion chamber, and the combination causes the shaking.

Senior managers were told of the findings last fall, but NASA did not talk about them publicly until the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request earlier this month and the watchdog Web site Nasawatch.com submitted detailed engineering-oriented questions.

The response to those questions, given to both Nasawatch and AP, were shared with outside experts, who judged it a serious problem.

NASA engineers characterized the shaking as being in what the agency considers the ''red zone'' of risk, ranking a five on a 1-to-5 scale of severity.

"It's highly likely to happen and if it does, it's a disaster,'' said Fischbeck, an expert in engineering risks.

The first launch of astronauts aboard Ares I and Orion is set for March 2015.

There's Got to Be an Invisible Sky

Sample page of the "Touch the Invisible Sky" book.

"Touch the Invisible Sky" is a 60-page book with color images of nebulae, stars, galaxies and some of the telescopes that captured the original pictures.
A new book brings cosmic objects close enough to touch — at least for the fingers of the blind.

NASA this week debuted a new book that presents images from its Great Observatories in a new format that allows visually impaired people to experience them.

"About 10 million visually impaired people live in the United States," said author Noreen Grice, in a statement. "I hope this book will be a unique resource for people who are sighted or blind to better understand the part of the universe that is invisible to all of us."

"Touch the Invisible Sky" contains 60 pages of color images of nebulae, stars, galaxies and a few of the telescopes used to capture the pictures. The authors added embossing of lines, bumps and other textures to each image, rendering colors, shapes, and other details in a third dimension. Descriptions that accompany each of the 28 images in the book are supplied in Braille and large-print text, making the information accessible to readers having differing visual abilities.

Images included come from the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. The celestial subjects are shown as they appear through visible-light telescopes and different spectral regions including radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray light.

The book introduces the concept of light and the spectrum. A variety of objects are presented to illustrate these concepts in order of increasing distance, beginning with our sun, then traveling out into the galaxy to exploding and dying stars, the Whirlpool galaxy and colliding Antennae galaxies.

As suggested by the book's title, many of the things outside the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum are "invisible" to sighted persons. Even celestial wonders photographed by Hubble and ground-based telescopes using visible light can only be captured through very long exposures. Then the researchers manipulate the images further, adding color and enhancing details. The information in "Touch the Invisible Sky" may allow blind and visually impaired students to interpret information about the universe as well as sighted persons.

"Touch the Invisible Sky" was written by Noreen Grice of You Can Do Astronomy LLC and the Museum of Science, Boston, with Simon Steel, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and Doris Daou, an astronomer at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

The book will be available through NASA libraries, the National Federation of the Blind, Library of Congress repositories, schools for the blind, libraries, museums, science centers and Ozone Publishing.

NASA Picks Finalists for Space Station Resupply Demonstrations

This artist's illustration depicts the automated PlanetSpace Modular Cargo Carrier supply ship as it is attached to the International Space Station using the outpost's robotic arm. Inset: An ATK booster launches the cargo ship spaceward.

Artist's concept of Rocketplane-Kistler's K-1 Orbital Vehicle.


WASHINGTON — NASA has narrowed the field of private space companies vying for $175 million in public funds the U.S. space agency expects to award in early February for demonstration flights to the International Space Station, according to industry sources closely following the competition.

At least eight firms, and perhaps as many as 14, submitted proposals in late November under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Established in 2006, COTS aims to spur development of privately operated space transportation systems capable of delivering cargo and eventually astronauts to the space station.

NASA selected two companies — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) — in mid-2006 to share about $500 million. But NASA has since pulled the plug on RpK's award for non-performance, freeing up the $175 million NASA intends to give to some other company next month.

According to multiple industry sources, NASA has notified four companies that they are finalists for the $175 million and should prepare to meet with COTS selection officials in Houston in the days ahead to defend their proposals.

Spacehab was one of the companies notified the week of Jan. 14 that it had made the cut, Eva DeCardenas, a spokeswoman for the Houston-based company, confirmed Jan. 17.

The other companies, according to sources are: Andrews Space of Seattle; Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va.; and PlanetSpace of Chicago.

NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey would not confirm that a downselect had taken place since the COTS competition remains under way.

Industry sources said NASA intends to announce its final selection Feb. 7, the date by which the U.S. Government Accountability Office is required to rule on RpK's challenge of NASA's use of Space Act Agreements for the COTS program. RpK maintains that a traditional federal contract would be a better fit for COTS.

Space Station Modules Proposed by UK Scientists

Two habitation modules emblazoned with the United Kingdom's Union Jack could launch to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2011 under a new plan devised by British scientists and engineers.

The proposal — not yet official with the ISS partnership — would not only improve living conditions on board the space station, but would also allow the United Kingdom to join other nations that have a foothold in space.

"I don't think there's an excuse for us not to be engaged in manned launches," said Mark Hempsell, aeronautical engineer at the University of Bristol and lead author on the proposal published in Spaceflight magazine.

The proposed Habitat Extension Module (HEM) would consist of two modules attached to the ISS Node 3 segment, a hub-like connecting module slated for a 2010 launch. The British addition would provide additional room and equipment for a permanent space station crew of six, as opposed to the current crew of three. The station is scheduled to shift to six-person crews in 2009, NASA officials have said.

Because NASA plans to retire the space shuttle by 2010, the HEM modules would launch on a Russian-built Soyuz-Fregat rocket in 2011 at the earliest. Once in orbit, the modules would use their own propulsion system to reach ISS.

Although ISS has plenty of experimental space for conducting scientific research, earlier plans for expanded living space were scrapped. The HEM modules would resurrect those facilities and provide enhanced protection for astronauts against space radiation.

Each module is a cylinder 12.5 feet (3.8 meters) in diameter and 18.7 feet (5.7 meters) long. The two modules would add 3,531.5 cubic feet (100 cubic meters) of living space, doubling the room provided by Node 3. They would include a communal area and six crew rooms with a radiation protection equivalent to 20.5 pounds of lead per square foot (100 kilograms of lead per square meter).

The modules would also deliver about three tons of supplies and experiments when they arrive to help keep the space station running.

"It's doing two things," Hempsell told SPACE.com. "Britain would make a contribution while also delivering a load of logistics equipment, and paying for the running costs and supplies."

That would cost the United Kingdom approximately $1 billion (530 million British pounds) to build, launch, and run the HEM modules until 2015, when the current operating life for ISS ends. The British Interplanetary Society supports the proposal, but the government has yet to seriously latch on.

"The British government keeps saying it's aware, but it's not actually saying it's going to do anything about it," Hempsell said.

An alternative proposal would simply use the Russian "astronaut tourist route" to launch British astronauts and some experiments into space, at the cost of just $31 million (16 million British pounds). However, Hempsell noted he was much more "enamored" of the bolder approach.

The United Kingdom currently makes no contribution to ISS and is not involved in the European Space Agency's activities on space station. For instance, the British opted out of contributing to the European Columbus module that is scheduled to launch with space shuttle Atlantis in February.

The British flag is currently displayed on the ISS Destiny module only because the nation signed the Space Station Agreement. Hempsell wants to see the United Kingdom take a more active role that would allow its scientists to participate in space-based research.

Current ISS participants such as the United States seem cautiously open to a serious British effort.

"If the British National Space Center decided it was something they wanted to do, NASA would look at the feasibility in terms of power, crew size, and propulsion," said John Yembrick, a NASA spokesperson at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters.

"In general, we support all our national partners," Yembrick added.

For now, Hempsell and his peers hope the idea will spur British space efforts as a new space race heats up across the globe. On the question of whether to take action, "the answer 'nothing' is the wrong answer," Hempsell said.