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The touching tribute to Leonard Nimoy from space

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Leonard Nimoys death on Friday has inspired countless actors, politicians and ordinary people to pay tribute tothe man behind Spock on Star Trek.

Then, on Saturday, American astronaut Terry Virts tweeted this photo while aboard the International Space Station:

The simple Vulcan salute, flashed back at earth from so many miles away, speaks to theimpact that Nimoy and Star Trek had on American space exploration.

Leonard Nimoy was an inspiration to multiple generations of engineers, scientists, astronauts, and other space explorers, NASA Administrator Charles Boldensaid in a statement. As Mr. Spock, he made science and technology important to the story, while never failing to show, by example, that it is the people around us who matter most. NASA was fortunate to have him as a friend and a colleague.

The space agency capitalized on thepublicity generated by the popular series, and Nimoy and other actors in the series became involved with NASA and other scientific organizations. ActressNichelle Nichols, for instance, became a recruiter for the agency, which was seeking more women and minority astronauts. Nichols has said Bolden was inspired to apply for NASA because of her campaign, and Sally Ride heard about the space program first through the Star Trek-linked publicity.

In 1976, NASA unveiled the space shuttle Enterprise, named after the craft on the show. It was initially supposed to be calledConstitution, but the name was changed after Star Trek viewers started a write-in campaign urging the White House to select the name Enterprise, according to NASA.

Many scientists have said that Nimoy inspired them.Don Lincoln, a senior physicist at Fermilab, told the Associated Press that Nimoys 1970s show In Search of influenced him to get into the field.

Despite the fact he worked in fiction, anyone who can inspire that many people to look into the sky and wonder has done something really important for mankind, Lincoln told the Associated Press. The fact is that Spock was a cool geek.Scientists are not always portrayed as being very strong. Usually, theyre the guy with the tape on their glasses and their pants too high. He was clearly a person who had desirable components beyond just being smart.

Nimoy and his wife donated $1 million to theGriffith Park observatory complex. Thetheater there bears his name tohonor Leonard Nimoys expansive and inclusive approach to public astronomy and artful inspiration,a statement from theobservatory reads. Mr. Nimoy was committed to people, community, and the enlarged perspective conferred by science, the arts, and the places where they meet.

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The touching tribute to Leonard Nimoy from space

Space station astronauts cleared for third spacewalk

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Expedition 42 commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore, wearing a green shirt, and Terry Virts chatted with reporters Thursday from the space station's Quest airlock module. NASA managers Friday cleared them for a third spacewalk Sunday to complete initial preparations for dockings by commercial crew capsules. NASA TV

International Space Station managers Friday cleared astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Terry Virts to proceed with a third spacewalk Sunday, as originally planned, after concluding a small amount of water in Virts' space helmet after an EVA Wednesday was an understood condition and not a threat to crew safety.

The six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 7:10 a.m. EST Sunday when the astronauts switch their spacesuits to battery power and exit the station's airlock. The spacewalkers plan to install four antennas, laser reflectors and cabling to permit communications with approaching and departing commercial crew capsules being built by Boeing and SpaceX.

"We're going to lay down over 400 feet of cable," Virts told a reporter Thursday. "These cables are going to attach to some antennas that are going to be used for the future American vehicles that are going to be docking, bringing crew to the space station starting in a few years.

"So we need to put these antennas and the cables there for them, and also some reflectors so their on-board navigation systems that use lasers (to) know where the station is and what orientation it's in and will be able to dock properly. There's a lot of moving from one end to the other on the station and a lot of equipment and hardware that we're going to be bringing out there."

During spacewalks last Saturday and Wednesday, Wilmore and Virts laid out some 340 feet of power and data lines needed by two new docking mechanisms what will be installed later this year and made preparations to relocate a storage module and a docking port extension. Virts also lubricated the grapple mechanisms on the end of the station's robot arm.

During airlock repressurization Wednesday, Virts noticed a small blob of water floating in his helmet and reported that a water absorption pad at the back of his helmet was damp, indicating seepage through the helmet's air duct.

During a spacewalk in July 2013, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano endured a potentially catastrophic water leak that forced him to make a quick retreat to the safety of the airlock. That leak was blamed on a clogged filter inside the suit's water cooling system.

But in Virts' case, the water intrusion occurred after the spacesuit had been reconnected to a station umbilical and after airlock repressurization had begun. As it turns out that same spacesuit experienced similar incidents after seven previous spacewalks, the result of condensation in the suit's cooling system after airlock repressurization.

"When you connect to the umbilical, you have a lot of cold air that's going past the cooling system of the suit and this air will often condense," Alex Kanelakos, a NASA spacewalk officer, said Friday. "And as we repress, we have high-density gas that's flowing past this condensed water that can often move the water over the crew member's helmet."

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Space station astronauts cleared for third spacewalk

Astronauts to go ahead with spacewalk Sunday

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Astronauts on the International Space Station will make a spacewalk Sunday despite the appearance of water inside an astronaut's helmet after a spacewalk earlier this week, NASA reported Friday on its website.

NASA said the suit worn by NASA astronaut Terry Virts has a history of "sublimator water carryover." Water in the sublimator cooling component can condense when the suit is repressurized after a spacewalk, causing a small amount of water to push into the helmet, NASA said.

NASA said International Space Station managers had "a high degree of confidence" in the suit.

On the upcoming spacewalk, Virts and Barry Wilmore will install antennas to provide data to visiting vehicles and deploy 400 feet of cable along the edge of the station.

Virts said he first noticed traces of fluid and dampness in his helmet Wednesday while he was waiting for the crew lock cabin to repressurize in the International Space Station.

He and Wilmore had been outside the space station for nearly seven hours working on the station's robotic arm and performing some maintenance.

Virts immediately alerted fellow astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti about the water and she alerted Mission Control in Houston.

Cristoforetti helped Virts out of his helmet and examined it. She confirmed the presence of moisture, mostly in the helmet absorption pad, or HAP, describing it as "wet and cold."

At the request of Mission Control, Anton Shkaplerov used a syringe to draw as much water as he could from the top of the helmet. Water had collected in the white plastic at the top and around both ear cups. Shkaplerov estimated there was 15 milliliters of water in the helmet.

That's a far cry from the amount of water that accumulated in Luca Parmitano's suit during a spacewalk in July 2013. Between 1 and 1.5 liters of water backed up in the suit and helmet, prompting fears Parmitano could drown in his own helmet. The spacewalk was cut short and NASA implemented some changes to its suits, including the addition of absorbent padding in helmets.

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Astronauts to go ahead with spacewalk Sunday

Affordable, real, healthy life in space, is it an Utopia? Dome! – Video

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Affordable, real, healthy life in space, is it an Utopia? Dome!
How to make space livable? First of all space is a very hostile environment: vacuum, radiation, extreme temperatures, extreme temperatures variations, objects of extreme velocity etc Apart...

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Affordable, real, healthy life in space, is it an Utopia? Dome! - Video

Russia to Stick With ISS Till 2024 as It Preps for Moon Mission

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NASAUnder President Vladimir Putin the space program has seen a measurable increase in funding.

After months ofuncertainty surrounding thelong-term fate ofthe International Space Station, Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos has announced its desire toremain inthe 15-nation program until 2024, anagency statement said late Tuesday night.

According tothe statement bythe agency's Scientific andTechnical Council (STC), asenior internal planning body, Russia will then move onto amoon mission around 2030.

"Today we determined that themain aim [for theprogram] is touse theISS todevelop our lunar program inlow Earth orbit, [before moving onto] deep space," Yury Koptev, head ofthe STC anda former Roscosmos chief, was quoted as saying inthe statement.

Roscosmos said that they envision Russian-manned spaceflight following two lines ofdevelopment over thenext decade.

Inthe near term, Russia will continue touse ISS as abase formodernizing andexpanding its domestic space assets.

Meanwhile, it will develop new technology tosupport theconstruction ofa new national space station around 2024 or 2025, which will be built onthe basis ofRussia's segment ofthe current ISS.

Russia's portion ofthe ISS, originally designed tobe theSoviet Union's Mir-2 space station, is technically capable ofserving as anindependent station, towhich new space station modules could be added.

According toRoscosmos, thenew national space station will ensure Russia's independent access tospace, provide abase forthe testing ofnew spacecraft, andeventually serve as away station forRussian cosmonauts ontheir way tothe moon around 2030.

Koptev was quoted inthe statement as saying that there is ageneral consensus within thespace agency andsurrounding industry that this path ofdevelopment is theproper course forRussia's space program.

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Russia to Stick With ISS Till 2024 as It Preps for Moon Mission

Russia to use International Space Station until 2024

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Roscosmos finalizes a plan for its activities up to 2030 which 'provides for the use of the ISS until 2024,' the space agency says

This March 7, 2011 NASA handout image shows a close-up view of the International Space Station is featured in this image photographed by an STS-133 crew member on space shuttle Discovery. NASA/AFP

MOSCOW, Russia Russia will continue using the International Space Station (ISS) in partnership with NASA until 2024, its space agency said, after Moscow had threatened to pull out and stop financing it by 2020.

Roscosmos has finalized a plan for its activities up to 2030 which "provides for the use of the ISS until 2024," the space agency said in a statement late Tuesday, February 24.

It also announced plans to begin manned missions to the moon by 2030 but said its objectives would be adjusted according to financing.

"We are taking into account possible changes in financing and the program will get updated," Yury Koptev, the head of the agency's scientific and technical committee, said.

NASA had already said the aging ISS will remain operational until 2024, but Russia's participation had been in question.

Russia had said it wanted to wind up its role in 2020 and in December delayed a final decision, while deputy defense minster Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the space industry, threatened to "use those resources on other promising space projects."

Russia's decision to postpone its departure from the ISS to 2024 is dictated by the current economic crisis, sparked by low oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine, said independent space analyst Vadim Lukashevich.

"All these hopes and dreams have been cancelled by the crisis. There's no money for a new station," Lukashevich told Agence France-Presse.

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Russia to use International Space Station until 2024

Astronaut 'mechanics' grease gear at space station

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Miami (AFP) - An American astronaut found water pooling inside his helmet after he finished a six-plus hour spacewalk on Wednesday, raising new concerns about the safety of NASA's spacesuits.

Terry Virts was not harmed during the incident, which the US space agency described as "minor" compared to the near-drowning of an Italian astronaut when a similar problem occurred in 2013.

But mission managers will be poring over the data at a meeting on Friday to decide whether another spacewalk can go ahead as planned on Sunday, a NASA spokesman said.

Even before this series of three spacewalks began on Saturday, NASA voiced concern about a recurring problem with the American spacesuits in a part of the temperature control system known as the fan pump separator.

Virts did not notice any water during the spacewalk, as he toiled for hours to lubricate the latching mechanisms on a robotic arm and helped his colleague Barry Wilmore get the space station's exterior ready for the arrival of commercial spaceships carrying astronauts in the coming years.

Their spacewalk lasted six hours and 43 minutes.

It was only after Virts was done, and had re-entered the Quest airlock, that he began to feel dampness on the back of his head and saw water pooling near the front of his headpiece.

The water inside Virts' helmet was "kind of pooling on the front side of his helmet above the eye level," European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti told mission control in Houston.

The water was "about three inches in diameter," she said, noting that the amount of water had increased in the moments since he first noticed it.

NASA television showed live images of Virts smiling inside his helmet and blowing on the water to make it ripple, before eventually removing the headpiece with Cristoforetti's help.

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Astronaut 'mechanics' grease gear at space station

Second spacewalk advances space station upgrades

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Spacewalkers Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Terry Virts work at the front of the International Space Station, installing cables needed for new docking mechanisms that will be launched later this year. NASA TV

Astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Terry Virts floated back outside the International Space Station Wednesday for the second of three spacewalks to help ready the lab complex for dockings by commercial crew capsules being built by Boeing and SpaceX.

Floating in the Quest airlock module, Wilmore and Virts switched their spacesuits to battery power at 6:51 a.m. EST (GMT-5) to officially kick off a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the second of three outings planned by the Expedition 42 crew.

For identification, station commander Wilmore, call sign EV-1, is wearing a suit with red stripes and will be using helmet camera No. 18. Virts, EV-2, is wearing an unmarked suit and will use helmetcam 20. The mission control communicator, or CAPCOM, for the spacewalk is veteran astronaut Joe Acaba.

During a six-hour 41 minute EVA Saturday, the astronauts laid out eight bundles of cables near the front of the space station that will supply power and data to new docking port mechanisms that will be launched and installed later this year.

During Wednesday's outing, they first removed a protective cover from a docking port extension on the front end of the space station that was once used by visiting space shuttles. The cover turned out to be fairly stiff, but the astronauts managed to stuff it in a stowage bag as planned.

"Hey Joe, please don't ask us how we did it," Virts joked with Acaba.

"I tell you what, I wish I had a video of it," Wilmore said.

"That was the 'stuff your sleeping bag in the bag in the morning' technique," Virts quipped.

The spacewalkers then stowed no-longer-needed shuttle power cables that were disconnected Saturday before installing two final sets of power and data cables needed by the docking mechanisms.

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Second spacewalk advances space station upgrades

How astronauts exercise on the ISS

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February 24, 2015

Catherine (Cady) Coleman, Expedition 26 flight engineer, performs calibrations on the VO2max Portable Pulmonary Function System (PPFS). The PPFS is located next to the Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation System (CEVIS) so astronauts can measure their oxygen consumption while riding the CEVIS. (Credit: NASA)

Provided by Laura Niles, NASA/Johnson Space Center

In February, our attention turns to romantic matters of the heart. As American Heart Month, this month is also a time to focus on heart health and a perfect excuse to start working out to improve your physical fitness. Astronauts on the International Space Station are working to keep their hearts healthy too, and at the same time they are generating data to advance knowledge of health and fitness in space and on Earth.

Astronauts exercise regularly while in space to maintain muscle, bone, and cardiovascular health and fitness and to remain fit and strong enough to perform physically demanding tasks such as extravehicular activity. Scientists have frequently measured the effectiveness of that exercise during short spaceflights.

Now, researchers have assessed exercise on longer spaceflights with the help of astronauts on the space station, measuring their VO2 peak before, during and after missions of four to five months.

[STORY: ISS adding more spaceship parking]

Widely accepted as the best measure of cardiovascular fitness, VO2peak, also called VO2max, is a measure of peak oxygen uptake. That represents the highest amount of oxygen your body can use to produce energy during exercise. Oxygen is used by cells to provide the energy to perform work and a more aerobically fit persons cells take up and use more oxygen, explains Meghan Downs, senior researcher at NASAs Exercise Physiology Laboratory.

VO2peak is measured using a bicycle test, with astronauts starting at low intensity and gradually increasing pedaling resistance over a short period of time until they could no longer pedal the bike. The tests were performed three months before launch to the space station; after approximately 15 days in space; every 30 days throughout flight; and one, 10 and 30 days following return to Earth.

According to the results, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, VO2peak decreased by an average of 17 percent by day 15 in space, but then gradually increased during flight. Most astronauts never recovered their preflight V02peak levels during the mission, but a few were able to maintain or even improve VO2peak during flight with frequent bouts of high intensity exercise.

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How astronauts exercise on the ISS

Moon Space Law: Legal Debate Swirls Around Private Lunar Ventures

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A recent action by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is stirring up some moon dust in a legal debate about private companies setting up shop on the moon.

In late 2014, the FAA's Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) responded favorably to a Bigelow Aerospace's "payload review" request. This query related to commercial development of the moon. Some view the verdict as a necessary step toward creating a legal framework for businesses to set up shop on the moon. But it's also clear more legal conversations are in the offing.

Without a legal framework, proponents of lunar business say that investors won't develop the financial and technical wherewithal to build industry on the moon. There's need for assurance from the United States government that private-sector activities will be approved and protected when they aim for the moon. [Bigelow Aerospace's Inflatable Space Station Idea (Photos)]

The FAA/AST decision also involved other federal agencies, including NASA, the Department of State and the Department of Defense. Bigelow Aerospace was assured that the AST would use its launch-licensing authority, as best it can, to protect private sector assets on the moon. The intent is to provide a safe environment for U.S. firms to conduct peaceful commercial activities on the moonwithout fear of harmful interference from other AST licensees.

"This response is a modest yet important initial step toward creating an environment that will encourage both today's and tomorrow's entrepreneurs to focus their resources on the moon," said Mike Gold, Director of Washington, D.C., operations and business growth for Bigelow Aerospace, LLC.

Bigelow Aerospace is keen on deploying, testing and utilizing the firm's expandable habitats in low Earth orbit before landing them on the moon, Gold told Space.com.

"Decisions such as the AST's payload review response help to encourage continued investment by Bigelow Aerospace in lunar development, and while a great deal of work remains to be done, we believe that a private sector lunar settlement could be established much more quickly and affordably than most would suspect," Gold said.

The FAA/AST action creates a number of issues that need addressing, said Michael Listner, the founder and principal of the firm Space Law and Policy Solutions, based in New Hampshire.

"Based on what I've read in media reports, it appears that while the FAA has taken steps to support Bigelow's future establishment of lunar modules on the moon, it also recognizes that Title 51, Chapter 509 (Commercial Space Launch Act) as currently amended limits their ability to fully endorse those plans through the grant of a launch license," Listner said.

Listner said the path forward is two-fold:

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Moon Space Law: Legal Debate Swirls Around Private Lunar Ventures

OUT OF THIS WORLD: Council Rock South students connect with International Space Station on an amazing call to space

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NORTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP >> Radio noise filled the auditorium at Council Rock South High School on Feb. 19 as everyone sat on the edge of their seats.

In front of them, on a large screen, they watched as a blip from the International Space Station appeared somewhere over the state of Georgia.

Nearly two minutes ticked by as operators from the Warminster Amateur Radio Club attempted to make contact as the blip moved toward the Northeast.

Then, suddenly, a voice broke through the noise sending a collective gasp through the room filled with more than 300 students, teachers and administrators gathered there to experience the once-in-a-lifetime moment.

This is November Alpha 1SS how do you read me? Over, came the voice of European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, her voice filling the auditorium via the ham radio set up.

For seven amazing minutes, as the International Space Station traveled from Georgia to Nova Scotia at a speed of 17,500 mph and at an altitude of more than 200 miles above the Earth, Cristoforetti fielded questions from students about life and work aboard the station.

Eleven pre-selected students stood in line on the stage waiting for a chance to ask a question of the astronaut on the long distance ham radio call to space.

We work on a 24 hour clock. We are human beings so we naturally have that kind of rhythm, said the Italian astronaut, answering a question on how the 90 minute orbit affects the way the way they work on the station, especially since they see a sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes.

Plus we work with teams on the ground, Cristoforetti continued. Of course they also go by a 24 hour clock. So we go by our watches and we use GMT time, which is the time that goes through Greenwich.

Answering another question, Cristoforetti said, I am not aware of any injuries happening on the space station luckily. We have a lot of safety teams on the ground that monitor all the equipment we have here to make sure its safe. However, even with little cuts and scratches they take a little longer to heal, she said. Continued...

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OUT OF THIS WORLD: Council Rock South students connect with International Space Station on an amazing call to space


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