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Space station cost projections questioned

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NASA cost estimates for operating the International Space Station through 2024 are "overly optimistic," the agency's inspector general reported Thursday, adding that the price of new U.S.-built space taxis likely will be higher than currently projected, exceeding the cost of flying aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA Inspector General Paul Martin also raised questions about NASA's ability to safely operate the lab complex through 2024, the current goal, unless engineers can develop ways to offset age-related solar array degradation; minimize equipment failures and get large replacement components to the lab in the absence of the space shuttle.

"While the ISS program is actively working to mitigate these risks, anticipating the correct amount of replacement parts and transporting them to the ISS present major challenges to extending station operations 10 or more years beyond its original expected service life," Martin concluded.

More troubling, perhaps, the OIG found that the "assumptions underlying the agency's budget projections for the ISS are overly optimistic and that its actual costs may be higher."

The report said NASA projects the space station budget will grow from $3 billion a year to nearly $4 billion by fiscal 2020. But the OIG found station costs rose 26 percent between fiscal 2011 and 2013 "and an average of 8 percent annually over the life of the program."

Much of the projected cost increase, the report said, was due to higher transportation costs.

"NASA's estimates for the cost of commercial crew transportation services expected to replace the Russian Soyuz are based on the cost of a Soyuz seat in FY 2016 -- $70.7 million -- per seat for a total cost of $283 million per mission for transporting four astronauts," the report said.

"However, the program's independent government cost estimates project significantly higher transportation costs when the agency transitions to contracts with commercial spaceflight companies."

NASA has relied on the three-seat Russian Soyuz to ferry astronauts to and from the space station since even before the shuttle's retirement in 2011. While the cost per seat is significant, it is far less than the cost of a seat on the much more powerful, and more expensive, space shuttle.

Even so, the lack of a U.S.-built ferry craft has rankled lawmakers and NASA managers alike.

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Space station cost projections questioned

'Space Station 76' roams pointlessly

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It's hard to say what the creators of "Space Station 76" were aiming for. But whatever it was, they didn't achieve it.

A good cast and much proven comic talent on both sides of the camera are lost in space as director Jack Plotnick and his co-screenwriters Sam Pancake, Jennifer Elise Cox, Kali Rocha and Michael Stoyanov fail to nail a satisfying theme, narrative or purpose.

"Space Station 76" is set on a spaceship in, as the press notes clarify, "the future as it was imagined in the 1970s." But this is no "Star Trek"-type enterprise. Instead, we're on a kind of flying condo complex with several unhappy, dysfunctional married couples (Matt Bomer and Marisa Coughlan; Jerry O'Connell and Rocha) and several unhappy, dysfunctional singles (Patrick Wilson as the ship's surly, closeted gay captain and Liv Tyler as his kindly but lonely co-captain). There's also an equitable child, Sunshine (Kylie Rogers).

Why these folks are there is blurry: The story, such as it is, lacks context. It's also without much of a structure. The film is essentially just a string of scenes, snapshots in the lives of its main characters.

Oh, and an asteroid is hurtling toward the spaceship. Big whoop.

But, really, what are we watching? If the film is a spoof, what exactly is it spoofing? If it's the 1970s, the period tunes and trappings seem random. If it's a comedy, it's rarely funny except for the robot shrink, which is inspired. And if it's a drama which much of the movie plays like it doesn't feel as if it should be taken seriously.

There's a perhaps purposeful flatness to the overall tone; it's like cinematic Musak. To that end, the actors largely play things straight. But that only adds to the confusion.

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'Space Station 76'

MPAA rating: R for sexuality, graphic nudity, language, drug use.

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'Space Station 76' roams pointlessly

3D printer heading to space could enable lunar exploration

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Unless you're a serious space nerd, you probably haven't been following the various rockets and spacecraft that SpaceX has launched since its first historic mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2012. But there's good reason to pay attention to the SpaceX CRS-4 mission, which may also go down in the record books. Just as it did on that inaugural flight to the ISS, the Dragon spacecraft will carry supplies, but this time the payload includes some crucial cargo - a 3D printer that works in space.

Watch our CNET News video to find out how a Silicon Valley startup designed a printer that works in zero gravity.

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Since 2010, Made In Space has been tinkering away on the groundbreaking hardware. During an interview at the company's offices at the NASA Ames Research Park, CEO and co-founder Aaron Kemmer stressed the significance of sending an additive manufacturing device to space.

"We've been building tools for thousands of years. This is the first time that it's not happening down here, but up there [in space]. That's paradigm shifting," said Kemmer, "We can actually leave planet Earth if we can start doing this more and more, if we start living off the land, building there, getting independent from planet Earth, rather than being completely dependent."

Made In Space is shooting for the moon, in more ways than one. It's already working towards utilizing the resources on hand to avoid needing to launch feedstock (such as ABS or PLA filament) for the 3D printers. R3DO, another Made In Space project, is a recycler that reuses 3D printed objects that are either no longer useful or broken to create new 3D prints. That could reduce space waste, but Made In Space has an even more ambitious idea: to print objects using regolith. Ever looked at a photo of the moon? It's the powdery substance that covers much of the surface - part soil, part dust, part ground rock. When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, he left his footprints in regolith. Kemmer says the material could be used "almost as concrete to build housing structures and roads."

With the ability to create objects on-demand, 3D printers have already been lauded as an alternative to traditional manufacturing and shipping methods which are costly and time-consuming.

"3D printing really has the capability to disrupt that. In space it's ten times, even a hundred times harder," Kemmer explains, "Because you have to have rockets in the equation and they are very dangerous and very expensive."

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3D printer heading to space could enable lunar exploration

SpaceX Dragon to Launch Space Mice, 3D Printer and More for NASA

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. SpaceX might be a few years away from launching human astronauts into orbit, but this weekend, the company is sending a miniature crew of live passengers into space.

An intrepid all-female group of 20 mice will ride inside SpaceX'sDragon space capsule early Saturday (Sept. 20) when it blasts off atop a Falcon 9 rocket on a delivery run to the International Space Station.

The mice are among a motley batch of cargo that includes some unusual items and milestones: the first 3D printer in space, mutant fruit flies, an Earth wind-watching radar, a mouse X-ray machineand a commercial experiment designed to make a better golf club. Dragon's flight scheduled for 2:14 a.m. EDT (0614 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station will be SpaceX's fourth official resupply mission to the astronaut outpost under a contract with NASA. [See photos from the SpaceX-4 Dragon mission]

The space-bound mice will be the first residents of NASA's new Rodent Research habitat, which scientists will use to study the animals' behavior and health. NASA's past rodent astronauts that flew aboard the space shuttle rarely spent more than two weeks in space. This mission primarily intended to test out the new habitat and hardware will last 30 days.

"Never were we able to achieve a flight experiment of this duration, so we'll get some new information," said Ruth Globus, project scientist for the rodent habitat at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

The 4-month-old adult mice prepping to take flight belong to a popularly used strain of inbred black-colored lab mice known as C57 Black 6. Using cameras inside the rodent habitat, scientists will monitor the rodents' behavior in microgravity.

"Rodents don't just float around and have fun," Globus told reporters here. "They tend to hold onto the walls. They move around a lot like monkeys do. They run around. They're very physically active."

But that pattern of behavior could change the longer they stay in space, Globus said.

Astronauts lose muscle and bone strength quickly when they go to space. And the same is expected to happen to mice. Researchers will measure the rodents' loss in bone density throughout the flight using a new X-ray machine called the Bone Densitometer. Built by Techshot, the microwave-sized instrument is also launching inside Dragon on Saturday. It will be the first X-ray source to be on the space station.

The mice won't be returning home alive; at the end of their month-long mission, the rodents will be euthanized and dissected by the astronauts so that certain parts can be frozen and preserved for study back on Earth, Globus said. (Scientists are particularly interested in looking at the creatures' hind-leg muscles, liver and spleen.)

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SpaceX Dragon to Launch Space Mice, 3D Printer and More for NASA

Capillary Flow Experiment to Be Tested on Space Station | Video – Video

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Capillary Flow Experiment to Be Tested on Space Station | Video
More space news and info at: http://www.coconutsciencelab.com - capillary flow offers a unique new way of improving fuel flow to rocket engines during weightless operations. Please rate and...

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Capillary Flow Experiment to Be Tested on Space Station | Video - Video

SpaceX Dragon version 2 to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the International Space Station – Video

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SpaceX Dragon version 2 to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the International Space Station
The Dragon version 2 spacecraft in development by SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, will advance beyond the design phase and be put into manufacturing for flight tests and eventual operational...

By: NASAKennedy

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SpaceX Dragon version 2 to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the International Space Station - Video

SpaceX Crew Transport Vehicle Progresses To Manufacturing Phase | Video – Video

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SpaceX Crew Transport Vehicle Progresses To Manufacturing Phase | Video
The SpaceX Dragon Version 2 will be put through test flights and eventually fly crewed operational missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX #39;s contract with NASA is in its final phase...

By: VideoFromSpace

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SpaceX Crew Transport Vehicle Progresses To Manufacturing Phase | Video - Video

Boeing CST-100 to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the International Space Station – Video

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Boeing CST-100 to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the International Space Station
The CST-100 spacecraft in development by Boeing Space Exploration of Houston, Texas, will -advance beyond the design phase and be put into manufacturing for flight tests and eventual operational...

By: Waspie_Dwarf

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Boeing CST-100 to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the International Space Station - Video

What will NASAs $6.8 billion space taxi contracts really buy?

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NASAs $6.8 billion deal with SpaceX and Boeing buys the US space agency a lot more than a few taxi rides to the International Space Station. From new independence from the Russian space program to the drive of competitive innovation, the private contracts promise to open new doors for US space exploration.

NASA administrator Charlie Bolden announced Tuesday that the space agency will contract with two private agencies to transport US astronaut crews to the International Space Station. The contract with the Houston-based Boeing Company is valued at $4.2 billion. California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., more commonly known as SpaceX, has been awarded a $2.6 billion contract. Under the contracts, each company will pilot between 2 and 6 ferrying missions.

NASA deactivated its own space shuttle in 2011 and has since relied on Russian vessels to transport US astronauts to the space station. Given mounting tensions between the two nations, Congress has been keen to minimize such reliance on the Russians.

The removal of NASA astronauts from the drivers' seats drew some criticism from some astrophysicists who expressed concerns that the move was the first step in a more systematic defunding of the US space program.

However, noted astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. sees the shift as a worthy reallocation of limited resources.

It makes sense to me that NASAs role should be at the frontier. Trucking astronauts and their food and supplies and so on is no longer the frontier, Dr. McDowell tells the Monitor. NASA astronauts shouldnt be truck drivers. Thats not what theyre for. Theyre for being the first people on Mars, or on an asteroid.

Outsourcing NASAs short-range transportation needs to private industry could also lead to innovations that ultimately reduce shuttle costs, McDowell says. Already, SpaceX has hinted that it will charge just a fraction of the $71 million per seat ticket price offered by the Russians.

NASA operates firmly under the thumbs of Congress and other federal regulatory bodies and can be bogged down by the same managerial redundancies and cumulative regulations that plague other government agencies.

Within the government, the drive to prevent anyone from doing anything wrong also stops people from having the flexibility to do what they need to do to get things right, McDowell says.

SpaceX and Boeing will certainly be subject to government regulations regarding safety and control of space debris. However as private companies, they enjoy more latitude in how they explore and implement technologies than NASA has, he explains.

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What will NASAs $6.8 billion space taxi contracts really buy?


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