Space Budgets, Policy, Missions, Benefits, International Update

Feb 1-12, 2016

  • Marshall Center Director: NASA names inside favorite new director of Marshall Space Flight Center
    NASA Administrator Charles Bolden named Todd May as director of the Marshall Space Flight Center on Monday. May has been the acting director of the NASA installation that oversees development of the Space Launch System exploration rocket since mid-November, when his predecessor Patrick Scheuermann retired.
  • Mars Exploration:
    NASA could choose Mars human landing site during next presidential administration
    NASA’s maturing deep space exploration preparations could make it possible for the next presidential administration to select a landing side for the first human expedition to Mars. A NASA sponsored Mars landing site workshop last October identified 47 possible sites of scientific interest on Mars that also host potential resources like subsurface water ice.
  • Asteroid Mission: NASA’s asteroid mission isn’t dead yet
    President Obama’s 2017 NASA budget proposal seems to raise questions about the future of the Asteroid Retrieval Mission fashioned by the space agency in response to a White House directive that U.S. astronauts travel to an asteroid by 2025. Unable to identify an asteroid destination it could reach with the Orion spacecraft, the space agency proposed a mission to collect a large boulder from an asteroid with a robot spacecraft and direct the large rock into orbit around the moon. Astronauts would rendezvous with the boulder using an Orion spacecraft launched atop a Space Launch System exploration rocket. However, Congress continues to question how the initiative advances plans to reach Mars with human explorers in the 2030s.
    (See also: Congressional Republicans pan NASA asteroid mission; NASA stays on course for Asteroid Redirect Mission)
  • Robots and Deep Space Exploration: NASA counting on humanoid robots for deep space exploration
    Machines that resemble the human form could become valuable assistants to astronauts preparing to work in and actually exploring hostile environments on asteroids and Mars, according to NASA researchers. Two R5 humanoid prototypes assembled by NASA are undergoing evaluation for the work at MIT and Northeastern University. R5’s successors could be an essential part of dangerous activities like setting up facilities on planetary surfaces and acting as caretakers.
  • Space Settlements: Settling space is the only sustainable reason for humans to be in space
    Future human space exploration will bring new resources to a growing population on Earth, an expanding economic base and eventually new places for perhaps millions of humans to live and work, writes Dale Skran, Executive Vice President of the National Space Society and a member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Space Development.
    (See also: Chris Hadfield: Moon colonization is ‘obvious’ next step)
  • Commercial Space Legislation Unlikely: New commercial space legislation unlikely this year Enacted into law last year, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act and its implications will likely draw the focus of U.S. policy makers in 2016 rather than efforts to enact new legislation, according to George Nield, head of the FAA’s commercial space office in remarks before the Commercial
    Space Transportation Conference in Washington on Wednesday. The latest legislation extended liability protection for commercial space activities and asserted rights of ownership to resources obtained from asteroids and other planetary bodies.
  • Don’t Give Up the Dream:
    Retired Nebraska astronaut Clayton Anderson tells Kearney students: I applied to NASA 15 times, so don’t give up     Retired NASA astronaut Clay Anderson urged students at Park Elementary School in Kearney, Neb., earlier this week to persevere as they pursue their life’s ambitions. Anderson applied 15 times before his selection to serve as an astronaut between 1998 and 2013. Anderson made two trips to orbit.

Citizens for Space Exploration – a pro-space, taxpayer, grassroots advocacy group Citizens Space Explorateion_logo(http://www.bayareahouston.com/content/c_s_e/c_s_e) – has traveled to Washington, D.C. the past 24 years to meet face-to-face with Members/staff of Congress to discuss the value of America’s investment in space exploration. In order to sustain that dialogue on a regular basis, Citizens distributes “Space Exploration Update” to Congressional offices on a weekly basis. The intent is to provide an easy, quick way to stay abreast of key human space exploration program and policy developments.