Daily Archives: July 28, 2017

President Donald Trump still hasnt named a NASA administrator one of three top NASA posts that have yet to be filled despite having made a bold promise in April to send a human to Mars during his first term. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Even the space policy adviser for Trumps campaign says its not going to happen during his time in the White House.

By NEGASSI TESFAMICHAEL

07/28/2017 11:17 AM EDT

President Donald Trump made a bold promise in April: He would send a human to Mars during his first term or, at worst, during my second term.

Vice President Mike Pence doubled down earlier this month. Here from this bridge to space, our nation will return to the moon ad we will put American boots on the face of Mars, Pence said at the Kennedy Space Center.

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But just about everyone else is saying fat chance.

Even Trumps space policy adviser for his campaign and transition says getting a man or woman on the face of Mars by 2024 is virtually impossible.

I dont think youll get there [to Mars], former Pennsylvania Rep. Bob Walker said in an interview about the possibilities under the Trump White House. I do think that we will probably have a flight to the moon, an Apollo 8-type flight where you go up and go around the moon in a fairly short period of time.

A NASA official who served under former President Barack Obama shared Walkers prediction. I think things could go very well for going to the moon, which I think is more likely to be a Trump agenda, said Lori Garver, Obamas deputy NASA administrator.

During his first six months in office, Trump has laid out an ambitious if non-specific space agenda.

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Beyond his promises on Mars, Trump has reinstated the National Space Council, a coordinating body that was first created under a different name during the Eisenhower administration, but has been dormant since 1993 after infighting doomed the entity. Hes also talked up the potential for the private sector to help advance space travel in the near future.

But there are plenty of other signs that cast doubt on Trumps dedication to ambitious leaps in space exploration.

Trump still hasnt named a NASA administrator one of three top NASA posts that have yet to be filled.

Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) is the most prominent contender, but has been for months. Current acting administrator Robert Lightfoot is also a possibility, according to Walker. A spokesperson for Bridenstines office did not respond to a request for comment.

The space council has also seen slow progress. Pence said at the Kennedy Space Center that he hoped to have the space councils first meeting before the end of the summer. But Marc Lotter, the vice presidents press secretary, said a date for that meeting has yet to be set.

The slow progress of the council and the NASA appointments worries some in the space community, who wonder how Trump is going to meet his space exploration goals.

I think there is a growing impatience with getting started with setting a direction of the space program that reflects Mr. Trumps views, said John Logsdon, founder and former director of George Washington Universitys Space Policy Institute.

Logsdon said the space policy community is encouraged by signals coming from the White House, but with little policy specifics announced, any optimism is cautious.

(Top) Vice President Mike Pence recognizes the 12 new NASA astronaut candidates on June 7, 2017 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. (Bottom) Pence signs a hatch from a space station training module mockup at the same event. | Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images

I think the community wants to give the council a chance, wants to give Mr. Trump a chance, Logsdon, who authored an extensive historical essay on council in January, said. Everything hes said so far, at least in terms of civilian space anyways, has been really positive. I think the community wants the words backed up by actions.

Trump also has yet to reckon with the harsh realities that would make it challenging to greatly accelerate NASAs Journey to Mars program that currently has astronauts reaching the vicinity of Mars in the 2030s.

In a call with NASA astronauts in April, Commander Peggy Whitson explained to the president that putting a human on Mars by 2024 is a longshot.

Unfortunately, spaceflight takes a lot of time and money, so getting there will require some international cooperation to get it to be a planet-wide approach, just because it is a very expensive endeavor, Whitson told Trump.

Logsdon called Trumps notion that the country could go to Mars ahead of schedule nonsense.

The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trumps space policy as described by Walker, Pence and several Republicans on the House Subcommittee on Space will center around increasing the role of the private sector, with the government entering more partnerships with companies like SpaceX and Boeing.

But using the private sector to accelerate NASAs schedule has its challenges. Walker said the U.S. will no longer have to depend on Russia rockets which cost NASA roughly $80 million a seat to get astronauts to the International Space Station, as Boeing and SpaceX test commercial crew vehicles.

But NASA thought in 2011 that the commercial space industry would be able to launch astronauts to the station by 2015, according to a 2016 audit.

Even with the private sector involved, space policy experts say the government would have to spend more moneyand increase NASAs budgetto get to Mars sooner.

However, Trumps budget proposal for the 2018 fiscal year has NASA at $19.1 billion, which leaves the space agencys resources relatively unchanged from the last few years. Though the agency warmly praised the budget, there are no major changes that indicate the Journey to Mars program will be accelerated.

Theres nothing that were spending on right now that would preclude a policy that were going to the moon and then going to Mars, said Andrew Aldrin, director of the Buzz Aldrin Space Institute. I would argue that what were spending money on is less than optimal than what we would need to go to Mars.

Garver said the first year of a new administration is an information-gathering year, and that like the Obama administration, the Trump White Houses second budget request would reflect more substantive policy decisions.

And if the administration decides to rapidly accelerate the Journey to Mars program by nearly a decade, the U.S. might have to end its commitment to the International Space Station.

The American portion of the space station is funded through 2024, but the U.S. will soon have to decide whether to stay or redirect those resourcesroughly $3 billionelsewhere if it decides to go to Mars in the near future.

If we maintain the International Space Station we will not have the funding for deep space exploration, Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) said of choosing Mars over the space station. We need to make plans. I just dont think we can do both.

Babin, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Space, said members have varying views on staying with the International Space Station past 2024 but nearly everyone wants to go back to the moon and eventually to Mars.

Meanwhile, Garver says the U.S. is likely to stay a part of the International Space Station after Scott Pace was appointed as executive secretary to the space council.

Hes been a supporter of commercial space, but also a supporter of status quo large programs, and would likely keep those as well," Garver said.

In the same April conversation with NASA astronauts, Trump said well have to speed that up a little bit, to get to Mars under his administration. However, few outside of the former real estate mogul himself have seemed to agree it would happen.

Walker, along with White House adviser Peter Navarro, helped craft space policy during the campaign, which was summed up in an op-ed in October entitled Trumps space policy reaches for Mars and the stars. With Mars still scheduled for the 2030s, experts and one of those same advisers say the U.S. will still be reaching for Mars at the end of the Trump era.

I think theyre pronouncements that are aspirational and the president likes to make those kinds of statements, Garver said of going to Mars under Trump. It would be best for NASA if the goal came with a why, a purpose I dont think a lot more thought has gone into it.

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Continued here:

Will Trump get a man to Mars? - Politico

Dr. Mae Jemison has built her career by taking big risks in pursuit of helping others and bettering our world -- while constantly searching for brand new ones for us to explore.

In 1992, she became the first African-American woman to travel to space as a crew member on board the Space Shuttle Endeavor. Before her tenure as a NASA astronaut, Jemison practiced medicine across the world, and served as a medical officer in the Peace Corps, overseeing care in Sierra Leone and Liberia when she was just 26-years-old.

The physician and engineer is also an educator. She taught environmental studies at Dartmouth University and is currently the lead ambassador for Bayers science literacy program Making Science Make Sense.

Jemison is also the leader of an organization called 100 Year Starship. Founded in 2011, its mission is to make it possible for humans to travel beyond our solar system within the next 100 years.

Related: After a Decade in Business, This Founder Became CEO. Here is How She Tackles New Challenges With Conviction.

The Alabama native says she believes that innovation cannot happen without collaboration between people who have different perspectives, disciplines and backgrounds. Shes especially passionate about getting women engaged in STEM fields and careers.

One of the big issues is, how do women take their place at the table and [move] things forward? We have a tremendous amount of resources and power. We have to be willing to use it and not shy away from it, Jemison told Entrepreneur. Sometimes we sit back and allow others to sort of set the stage. We have to be willing to support each other. When somebody steps forward don't just just leave them standing there.

Entrepreneur spoke with Jemison about why you should turn to your younger self for advice during tough moments and how to find the fortitude to stand up for what you believe in.

What was a critical decision you made in your career that you knew was really important, but you werent sure of what the outcome would be?

In my fourth year [of medical school], we were supposed to be choosing residencies and internship programs to apply to. I decided that I wanted to do a rotating internship with nothing after it, because I realized if I actually planned everything out I would never go overseas to another developing country or pick a position like that, [which I wanted to do]. It would be just too hard to get off the track. So I left myself completely open without anything set out. I was called down to the dean's office and she said, "Why are you doing this? You know you're throwing away your career?"

I applied for a position as a Peace Corps medical officer. I took care of Peace Corps volunteers and State Department personnel in Sierra Leone and Liberia for two and a half years. I was one of the youngest doctors they ever had in that position. I actually thought that those two and a half years were basically going to be throwaway years. Then I'd come back and I'd get into biomedical engineering. But what it did was it gave me a lot of operational experience. I was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I had to make life-and-death decisions.

My first two weeks in Sierra Leone, I had to call a military medical evacuation that cost over $80,000 to take care of a volunteer who was very ill. I had to be very forceful with a number of folks and [understand] that this was my ability and my authority to do this. That's one of those things that sticks with you. Sometimes if I start to falter, I can look back at my 26-year-old self. My mantra was, my job is first and foremost for my patients, to the volunteers and to people's health, and I will do my job. And I won't be intimidated from doing my job.

When I got back, I applied for the astronaut program and it turns out that [operational experience] was important to [them]. When they looked at me, they saw someone who had been working on their own in very difficult circumstances and in extreme environments and extreme medicine. It also set me on the path of really understanding and fully appreciating the idea of trans-disciplinary work, that you need to have different people at the table coming up with solutions.

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What do you do when youre faced with a big decision or when you know youre going to be taking a big risk?

The first thing I do is I actually make a pros and cons list. I look at the things I really like to do and things I don't like to do. And then what things I'm good at and what things I'm not so good at. And those are different lists, right? I might like to do some things that I'm not necessarily good at. And there may be some things you're good at that you're not particularly interested in doing. Which usually means that you don't do as good a job at those things in the long run.

I think about what my younger self would have advised me to do. You get wisdom when you get older but sometimes you also get a little bit of trepidation. You may not take those those risks that are actually really good for you to take. And the other thing I rely on is I've always been a quick study. I think I rely on my innate ability and the confidence I have in myself. If no one has ever done it before, I can give it a try.

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What was a time when you knew you had to stand up for what you believed in despite any pushback you might have gotten? How did you approach it?

I was an environmental studies professor at Dartmouth and I worked on a ton of issues around sustainable development. It's taken a while for the issue of the environment and sustainable development to flow into [the mainstream]. Fifteen or 20 years ago, it wasn't necessarily the thing to talk about, especially in corporations and board meeting or banks. But I [told myself], well, what difference does it make? Do your job. Your job is to bring a different point of view -- your point of view and the experiences that you have. Even though you know people are going to get irritated or they don't want to hear it, you have to do the right thing.

I think one of the things that we do is to give away our power by not talking about things, by not bringing them up. Women very frequently are taught not to not to make waves. People sometimes see you as more combative than they would see a male who brings up the same thing. It's not even that you're combative or aggressive, you're bringing up a different point of view. They get kind of irritated when you have your own views, especially if they depart from the baseline of what they are looking at. And that's where you have to have the fortitude. That's sometimes difficult, because you may know that you're not going to get brownie points for doing that. You have to figure out what's important to you at that time and how strong your position is.

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In your career, what as a mistake youve made and how did you address it and move forward from it?

Hiring people and not letting them go soon enough. And then you end up with all this baggage that you have to clean up when you finally realize it's time to let go. The mistake is not necessarily in hiring them. The mistake is when you recognized that something was wrong and you kept telling yourself it's going to get better, maybe it's something I'm doing that I need to correct and change. If it keeps going on and on and you don't act on it, you end up wasting a lot of time, money and energy. And that's particularly true in a small company when you have very few people. One of the parts of growing up and learning that maybe you can't [change things]. Maybe it's not you. There may not be anybody who's at fault. It's just not a good fit.

What are you working on now that has you excited about the future?

I'm very excited about continuing my work with science literacy. We need to fill this gap of the upcoming job shortage. That's the reason why we need to get women involved and underrepresented minorities. But for me it's not just the number of people -- it's really about the different perspectives that are brought to bear so that we get more robust solutions.

I'm also excited about the work I'm doing with 100 Year Starship. In 2011, it was seed funded through a competitive grant from DARPA. [Our mission is to] make sure we have the capabilities for human interstellar travel, to the outer solar system and to another star within a hundred years. [When we applied for the grant] I was channeling my younger self. And I brought in what I've learned about the importance of different perspectives. I thought that if anyone could do this, I should know how to do this, in terms of putting together the organization.

The title of our proposal that we put together was "An inclusive, audacious journey transforms life here on Earth and beyond." And the first word is inclusive. [Not just] ethnicity, gender and geography, but also the range of disciplines and getting people involved who were not just "space people" and subject matter experts, but the public as well. It's what we need to do to get things accomplished. We also have to connect it to how we transform our lives here on Earth.

Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

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The First African-American Woman to Travel to Space Shares How She Finds Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems - Entrepreneur

ITS not rocket science, as the saying goes, as to where those in the highly respected profession get their inspiration from as Alan Bond revealed upon receiving an honorary degree at the University of Warwick.

One of the UKs leading rocket scientists, he was motivated to take up rocket engineering when he read an episode of the comic strip Dan Dare called Operation Saturn, published in the Eagle comic in 1953.

He soon joined up with amateur rocket enthusiasts, including a group in Leamington, and he built and launched hundreds of rockets as a teenager.

Parts of the rocket engines he helped develop were manufactured in the Rolls Royce workshops in Parkside in Coventry, and tested at the companys facilities at Ansty.

Now he is leading the way in developing space travel.

Mr Bond received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science last Tuesday (July 18), and explained the numerous key Coventry and Warwickshire influences on his career and life.

During his time in the region, Alans son was born in the then Walsgrave Hospital (now part of University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust).

The young Alans interest in rockets brought him to the attention of leading UK rocket engineer Val Cleaver who hired him to work on the engines powering the UKs Blue Streak missile and Black Arrow launch vehicle. Parts of these engines were manufactured and tested by Rolls Royce in the region.

The university website adds: He first worked on liquid rocket engines, principally the RZ2 (liquid oxygen / kerosene) and the RZ20 (liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen) at Rolls Royce, and he was also involved with flight trials of the UKs Blue Streak satellite launch rocket at Woomera in Australia.

He also worked for around two decades on the UK Atomic Energy Authoritys Culham Laboratory on nuclear fusion, on the JET and RFX nuclear research projects.

He also explored how to use fusion to enable interplanetary space travel.

And he was the leading author of the report on the Project Daedalus interstellar, a fusion powered starship proposal, which was published by the British Interplanetary Society.

In the 1980s, he was one of the creators of the HOTOL spaceplane project, and he brought a key jet engine design that he had invented to the HOTOL project.

In 1989, Alan Bond was one of the founders of Reaction Engines Ltd. REL is developing a single-stage orbital spaceplane called Skylon, and other advanced vehicles including a hypersonic airliner concept as part of the European LAPCAT programme.

The projects have involved the practical development of hydrogen fuelled, pre-cooled air breathing rocket engines, most notably, an engine called SABRE (Synergic Air Breathing Rocket Engine).

The aim being to create a vehicle which can take off like a normal aircraft and fly into space.

Read more from the original source:

Rocketman from Leamington leads the way in space travel - Leamington Observer