Welcome to another Saturday morning edition of This Week in Space. Check out my choices for the Top Ten Space Stories. See what has been keeping the stargazers busy over in Astronomy Corner. And before you drink that second cup of coffee find out what that dark matter floating around in your mug has in common with the cosmos. This week's pictures are an incredible photo album of Saturn rings and moons from the Cassini spacecraft. Make sure you take time to read space and NASA diaries posted by fellow Kossacks and stop by Vladislaw's page to congratulate him on making rec list twice this week! (And be sure to tell him to quit sneaking peeks at my Top Ten list before I publish my diary! :)
Space Radar
Number of rocket launches this week: 3 (China, Russia, India)
Number of manmade objects in space on October 3, 1957: 0
Number of manmade objects in space today: >13000
Number of moons orbiting Saturn: 61 + 3 possibles
Nella's Top Ten Space Stories
- Monday Morning Blues
Herschel and Planck launch postponed ESA Monday is being Monday again and throwing everybody a curve. Disappointing launch news.
Launch put on hold Torrance Daily Breeze One more reason to hate Mondays. Malaysian news agencies were reporting that the Falcon 1 launch was postponed due to damage to the launcher. But, the press released by SpaceX disputed the initial reports stating that the satellite and the launcher have compatibility problems. Another launch delayed. Crap
Stephen Hawking Hospitalized, Reported Very Ill When it rains, it pours. Some more disheartening news on Monday about the person who brought us black holes and a brilliant book 'A Brief History of Time'. Latest news, is that he is comfortable and being kept for observation. May this living treasure recover soon.
- ISRO launches spy satellite The Statesman Spy satellites seem all the rage these days with the launch of another one by India who bought it from former foe Israel, spurred in part by the Mumbai terrorist attacks several months ago. One has to wonder if a new military arms buildup in space is on the horizon. Another military comm sat went up on Monday as well: NATO satellite launched on Russian-Ukrainian rocket Space Daily. What next killer satellite droids?
- White House replies to budget criticism by former NASA administrator Michael Griffin Houston Chronicle If Michael Griffin hoped to have another chance to work with NASA on Constellation program, he may have effectively killed that chance with his critical remarks of the Obama administration made while receiving the Goddard Award Friday evening. And the White House responded quickly leaving the impression that NASA is at least on someone's mind in the Obama administration. Keith Cowing had to make the affair all about his blog NASA Watch instead of focusing on the real issues behind Griffin's criticisms. The remark Keith claimed Griffin purportedly made about his blog was disputed by several people who attended the ceremony and so I posted a snarky, teasing comment on his blog and got my identity outed yet again. Oh well. (Btw, my real name can be easily seen in my email address on my diary page. NellaSelim is actually the reversed spelling of my middle and last name. Like many bloggers, I was looking for a unique identifier rather than trying to hide my identity. Apparently, Keith doesn't get that.)
- Closing In on the Next Earth ScienceNOW Even before Kepler can get to work, a group of Swiss astronomers have identified a possible Earthlike world orbiting the habitable zone around another star. At about twice the size of Earth, some scientists are speculating that it could be a water world. Tingles the spine. Vladislaw diaried about the new find and made the rec list for the first time! Yay! However, as I had most of these stories set up on Monday and Tuesday, I now have this sneaking suspicion that Vlad is either telepathic or has secret access to my unpublished Top Ten list. Or is it possible that he loves space related stories as much as I do? He has only written something close to 150 diaries about space, NASA, and Star Trek in the past 6 months! It couldn't be that could it? ;-)
- Hubble Celebrates 19th Anniversary With Fountain Of Youth On the anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope launch, NASA is preparing the space shuttle Atlantis for the final mission to repair the Hubble that was postponed seven months ago. Launch operations are going so well that NASA is moving the launch date up to May 11 and the crew is excited about their mission according to this blog post: Atlantis Crew Excited for Hubble Mission from Florida Today.
- Constellation Acceleration Study Report NASA This internal NASA study about the Constellation program issued in December 2008 was obtained by the Orlando Sentinel through Freedom of Information Act as noted in this blog post from Robert Block: Accelerating NASA's Ares I isn't easy or cheap. The study reviewed a number of options for accelerating the Constellation program to reduce the US human spaceflight gap. But also noted in the study was that the current level of funding was inadequate to support even the present pace of the ARES 1/Orion program. The study suggested that NASA would need at least an additional $3.8 billion to meet the current goal of launching Ares I by 2015.
- Testimony of Gregory J. Junemann, President International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AFL-CIO, CLC NASA Watch With the retirement of the space shuttle, NASA is facing one of the largest loss of its intellectual capital since the end of the Apollo program according to the testimony of Gregory J. Junemann president of an engineers union affiliated with AFL-CIO. There is no question that NASA has been hurt by the lack of an administrator to lead the agency at a critical time for NASA with the upcoming shuttle retirement and the Constellation testing programs for Ares I and Orion.
- Refining Constellation’s plans to make 2015 - Hanley proposes major changes NASA Spaceflight.com Chris Bergin is reporting that NASA is now committed to doing a 60 day review of the current manned programs to determine the best course of action for NASA to proceed on in order to return America back to space by 2015. Lori Garver, who is rumored to be named the next NASA administrator, will be heading the ESAS style study.
- The first quarter earnings report for aerospace companies are out. And a look at some of these headlines would at first lead one to think that aerospace had a dismal year. But in fact there is good news, while profit is down for both Lockheed Martin and Boeing, their gross revenues actually increased and LM's profit decline was less than predicted. Raytheon and L-3 profits and gross revenue actually rose, a fairly strong showing in this weakened economy.
Lockheed Martin profit falls 9 percent in 1st qtr Associated Press
Raytheon, L-3 Communications 1Q earnings rise Associated Press
Boeing profit drops on production cuts Associated Press
- PlanetSpace loses protest over NASA contract award Orlando Sentinel Good news for SpaceX and Orbital, Planetspace - an "independent startup" with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Alliant Tech as major subcontractors - had its request for examination of the COTS bid review denied by the Government Accountability Office. Both SpaceX and Orbital can now resume working on COTS contract. Also, SpaceX announced successful qualification testing of their Dracco thruster which will be part of propulsion unit for the Dragon resupply spacecraft for the ISS. Here is a cool link to SpaceX Engine Test Site Youtube video: SpaceX Texas Test Site Tour
Astronomy Corner
Most Distant Detection Of Water In The Universe Space Daily
Giant mystery blob found near dawn of time MSNBC
Largest collection of anomalous white dwarfs observed in new Hubble images Eurekalert
As you can tell from Top Stories and here, the astronomers have been very busy this week finding new Earths, looking for water in distant galaxies, and apparently watching that 1958 cult horror/scifi flick The Blob one too many times.
Weird Space
Duke Physicists See The Cosmos In A Coffee Cup Space Daily I will never look at my coffee the same way again. Is that dark matter floating around in my cup?
Space Photo Album of the Week
I could not possibly pick just one of these incredible photos from the Cassini spacecraft and included 3 pictures here. And these are actual real photos. For the rest of this album and photo captions go to this link: Cosmic close-up: Sensational images of Saturn show the ringed planet in incredible detail.
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NASA and Space Diaries by Fellow Kossacks
Big Bang Al Rodgers (rec list)
How To Deflect Asteroids And Save The Earth. Vladislaw
Space Junk Risk: 1 in 221 During Hubble Repair Mission. Vladislaw
LRO To Help Astronauts Survive on the moon. Vladislaw
Scientists discover a nearly Earth-sized planet. Vladislaw (rec list)
Mysterious Space Blob Discovered at Cosmic Dawn. Vladislaw (rec list)
Officials sign off on GIANT Magellan Telescope. Vladislaw
The case for EML "Entrepot" depots and RLLs Bill White