NASA Monkey Radiation Study Draws Group's Ire

November 06, 2009

Our story about a NASA space radiation study that will use squirrel monkeys as subjects caught the eye -- and ire -- of a group known as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which is petitioning NASA administrator Charlie Bolden to stop the project.

“Irradiating monkeys would be one giant leap backward for NASA,” the group’s director of research policy Hope Ferdowsian said in a statement. “The proposed experiments are cruel, unnecessary, and lack scientific merit. There are better, more humane ways of understanding the potential dangers of interplanetary travel to humans. Scientific progress can only proceed with a strong ethical foundation.”

The petition claims that the research violates several mandates of the agency’s “Principles for the  Ethical Care and Use of Animals” report.

“Genetic, physiological, and anatomical differences between humans and monkeys dramatically limit the conclusions that can be drawn from the planned experiments,” the petition states.

“Ongoing studies, including those funded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy, already use nonanimal methods to determine the effects of low-dose radiation on human tissues,” Ferdowsian wrote.

The group also questions the need for this type of research, claiming that “Interplanetary human travel is, at best, a highly speculative aim for the foreseeable future. It is obviously fraught with many dangers and enormous expense, while serving goals that are not at all clear. To put animals through radiation tests now in anticipation of such an enterprise is in no way justified.”

 

Welcome To The Recession, NASA

August 13, 2009

A tedious final public meeting of the board reviewing the country’s human space program concluded with a sobering assessment of the future, at least for those wishing to see American flags on other bodies in the solar system. To put it bluntly: It ain’t gonna happen in our lifetimes without a big boost in NASA’s budget.

That’s not to say there’s not a silver lining, a couple actually. First off, we’re likely to make our international partners very happy because the only program that looks robust and viable for the foreseeable future is the International Space Station. For the most part, the Human Space Flight Review panel seems to favor extending its planned lifetime to at least 2020. 

It’s a logical choice considering that the complex isn’t even finished yet and currently is on the books for only five years of operating funds beyond its 2010 completion date. That’s less time than NASA has kept the rovers Spirit and Opportunity plucking around on Mars.  The space station will have consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion by the time it’s finished, so it seems only prudent to try to get some return on the investment.

NASA, however, would like to move beyond operations 200 miles above Earth and has set its sights on the moon and Mars. The blueprint it’s been working toward had its legs cut out from under it, financially speaking, and it’s over.

“We can’t do this program in this budget,” board member Sally Ride told her colleagues on the Human Space Flight Review panel, which wrapped up what was expected to be its final public meeting in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. “This budget is simply not friendly to exploration.”

About $3 billion a year would be needed to get the exploration initiative back on track, though the earliest a return to the moon could occur is probably in the mid-2020s, rather than 2020, the agency’s initial goal.

The cards left on the table, however, offer a new path into space, one that might be well-tread by NASA, but is brand new to the rest of us. By extending the space station, the government can create a commercial market for rides to space. Once the space shuttles are retired, NASA will need a way to transport its astronauts and the only option now is to buy rides from the Russian government for close to $50 million a seat.

Buying rides commercially not only could create a more robust space station program, it could open travel options for tourism and other orbital expeditions.

It’d be a tough pill for NASA to swallow, one that has stymied almost every government bureaucracy, as it would require the agency to do the unthinkable: get smaller. Welcome to the recession, NASA.

Think Goals, Not Destinations, Space Panel Members Advise

July 30, 2009

Rather than picking a destination, the U.S. human space program should be built around the goal of extending human civilization beyond Earth, say members of a subcommittee of the presidential panel reviewing NASA’s human space project.

“Our ultimate objective should be viewed as the exploration and eventual extension of human civilization of the solar system,” said Edward Crawley, a board member and chaired professor at MIT, said at the board's meeting in Cocoa Beach today.

“I know this sounds terribly ambitious and dramatic, but if that is not the point of human space flight … then what the hell are we doing?” added board member Jeff Greason, co-founder and chief executive of XCOR Aerospace.

NASA’s current plan is to develop a replacement spaceship for the retiring shuttle fleet and design new rockets that can carry cargo to the moon. The goal of the program was to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2020.

Funding for the $108 billion project, however, was cut short by tens of billions of dollars, pushing the moon landing to the mid-2020s, members of the U.S. Human Space Flight Review panel said.

Adding funds to keep the International Space Station operational beyond 2015 would eat another $10 billion to $14 billion of NASA’s projected budget.

Board members also suggested that NASA break apart large missions into smaller components that can be handled by commercial launch firms using fleets of lower-cost rockets. Among the proposals: setting up fuel depots in Earth orbit that can be tapped for a wide variety of missions to other destinations in the solar system.

They also warned that concerns about radiation exposure could limit deep space excursions to 200 days and urged their colleagues to suggest NASA step up efforts to understand the impacts of cosmic rays to the human body and to develop countermeasures.

The panel, headed by former Lockheed Martin chief Norm Augustine, is two months into a three-month effort to compile options for President Barack Obama about what to do with the country’s human space program. The report is due Aug. 31. 

(Photo: Panel chairman Norm Augustine. Credit: NASA) 

Is It Time to Invite China to the Space Party?

July 24, 2009

As the wise men and women appointed to present President Obama with some options for what to do with the country’s human space program barrel through their summer assignment, I’m wondering if there will be any serious consideration given to the elephant in the room.

I refer not to the retreating ranks of Republicans, but to what seems to be an obvious solution to a number of problems, first and foremost of which is defining a mission the space program can accomplish for our new president.

What I've learned in 100 shuttle missions

June 11, 2009

It was a quiet day at the Kennedy Space Center where NASA is getting ready for the launch of its 127th space shuttle mission, a construction flight to the International Space Station. 

Coming on the heels of last month’s high-profile Hubble Space Telescope repair flight, this mission’s claim to fame, so far anyway, is a story of numbers: with the shuttle’s seven astronauts joining the newly expanded six-member station crew, a record 13 people will be together in orbit. Slated to last 16 days, the mission also will be among NASA’s longest. The primary goal is to attach a new porch outside the station so that experiments can be exposed to the vacuum of space.

I realize some of you may have nodded off after that summary and that’s sort of the problem the United States has been having with its human space flight program. It has finesse -- how else to describe the engineering achievement of putting together that huge laboratory in orbit? -- but lacks pizzazz. And the benefits of the program are nebulous at best.

A bunch of passionate, intelligent, well-intentioned folks will be getting together beginning next week at the behest of President Obama to figure out, once and for all (again), what this country should be doing with its human space program. That’s a topic for another day.  

As a professional reporter, I shy away from offering an opinion about what I cover, but at the request of my new producer and a couple of friends I am going to make an exception and share some personal thoughts about NASA and the space shuttle program.

I’ll begin by divulging a milestone of my own: This flight is my 100th shuttle mission, making me among a handful of reporters whose days on the space beat date back to the Challenger-era. My first launch 

NASA chief, deputy nominated

May 23, 2009

Former astronaut Charlie Bolden has been nominated to become the new NASA administrator. His deputy? Lori Garver, a White House insider who oversaw space issues for the Obama transition team. You can read more about them here and here.

New Head for NASA?

May 15, 2009

Delaware North, the company that operates NASA’s visitors center at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, may have been incredibly prescient when it chose the virtual host for its Shuttle Launch Experience, a $60 million attraction that opened a couple of years ago.

Armchair astronauts get their launch training from four-time shuttle veteran Charlie Bolden, who is on tap to become NASA’s chief, according to several media reports. The appointment is expected as early as Monday.

Bolden, a retired major general in the Marines, is nothing if not highly respected. He joined NASA in 1980, stayed with the program through the Challenger disaster six years later, piloted the mission that put the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit, then went on to command a Spacelab shuttle research flight and the first mission that included a Russsian cosmonaut as a member of the shuttle crew.

Bolden left NASA to resume his career in the U.S. Marine Corps in June 1994. He was tapped to serve as the deputy administrator to agency chief Sean O’Keefe in 2002, but his nomination was withdrawn by the Bush administration, which said he was needed in military service.

Bolden’s appointment to the top post has been a personal missive of Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, one of two legislators who have flown in space before NASA stopped the practice of flying civilians after the Challenger accident. 

(Charlie Bolden, right, being inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville, Fla., in 2006 , receives congratulations from Apollo astronaut Al Worden, left. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett) 

NASA Getting Face Time With Obama

May 07, 2009

Never mind that the Obama administration still hasn’t filled the top job at NASA. Acting administrator Chris Scolese said he’s been to see the president three times last month.

“I think that's an indication that NASA is something that this administration really cares about,” Scolese told reporters on Thursday at a press conference to unveil the agency’s 2010 spending plan.

It looks good from the outset, with a $2 billion boost from stimulus funds. But that tails off sharply in the out years, leaving the agency’s moon exploration initiative short more than $3 billion compared to what NASA projected in 2009.

The whole effort may be moot. Upstaging the budget  was the news that Obama wants a top-level independent review of the country’s human spaceflight program, which may not bode well for NASA’s shuttle replacement.

Norm Augustine, who headed a similar study nearly 20 years ago, was tapped to head the review committee, which is scheduled to report back by August.

Apparently everything is on the table, including extending NASA’s involvement in the International Space Station, which currently is funded through 2015, the Ares-Orion space transportation system being designed to replace the retiring space shuttles, and NASA’s plans to land astronauts on the moon.

"You can expect a new administration coming in wants to understand where we're at and is this the best way to go forward," Scolese said.  "Clearly if we're on the wrong path we should change. If you're asking me  do I think we're on the wrong path, no, I don't.”

Scolese said NASA will continue development of its Ares 1 rocket and Orion capsule during the review. However, contracts for initial work on the heavy lift Ares 5, needed for lunar transport, as well a lunar vehicle, will be put on hold pending the results of Augustine’s review, added Doug Cooke, who oversees the agency’s Exploration programs.

(Acting administrator Chris Scolese. Credit: NASA) 

NASA Heading Back to the Drawing Board?

May 06, 2009

NASA recently completed the first ocean tests of its new Orion spaceships, which are scheduled to debut in 2015, but more changes may be in store. 

The agency on Thursday will unveil its spending plan for the year beginning Sept. 30 -- and possibly order a new review of its Ares rocket program. Ares is the launch vehicle that is being developed to carry Orion capsules to the space station and the moon. 

The program, which was staunchly defended by NASA's former administrator Mike Griffin, has its critics, including those who question why NASA can't use the existing, commercially available booster rockets sold through United Launch Alliance. 

There also may be a less expensive alternative for the Orion capsules, at least for missions to the space station. The new budget is expected to include $150 million to help develop a passenger spaceship called Dragon being designed by Space Exploration Technologies, a privately held firm owned by internet entrepreneur Elon Musk. 

(Orion afloat, but for how long? Credit: NASA) 

NASA Looks to Future, Hands out Pink Slips

May 01, 2009

With the high-profile shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope finally ready to fly, the space station on the verge of getting its full six-member crew and the debut flight for NASA’s new exploration initiative to return astronauts to the moon slated to launch in a few weeks, it’s a fabulous time for the space business -- unless you happen to be one of the misfortunate chaps getting a pink slip today.

In a bizarre contrast of old and new, NASA’s associate administrator extolled the virtues of the space program today, with particular emphasis on several milestone 

events in May, during the same press conference on Thursday where his shuttle program manager John Shannon stalwartly laid out plans to cut 900 positions by Sept. 30. The first 160 layoff notices go out today.

It’s the first significant step to close down the shuttle manufacturing lines, in preparation for the retirement of the three-ship fleet at the end of next year. NASA plans eight more mission to the finish building and outfitting the space station before then, as well as the final servicing call to Hubble -- now slated to launch on May 11 -- before then.

Congress is taking steps to alleviate the schedule pressure in case all nine flights can’t be finished by Sept. 30, 2010, the end of the government’s fiscal year. Legislators authorized another $2.5 billion for NASA to keep things going until 2011 if needed. None of that, however, is going to go toward buying more shuttle parts.

The layoffs are expected to hit Lockheed Martin’s facility in New Orleans, where the shuttle’s fuel tanks are made, and ATK Thiokol’s plant in Utah, which produces the solid rocket boosters.

“At some point you have to decide that what the shuttle was meant to do has been done … and it’s time to move on,” Shannon said.