Category Archives: Space Station

WASHINGTON The world's most expensive science project the $100 billion-plus International Space Station is poised to get four more years in orbit.

According to documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, NASA plans to announce this week that it has White House approval to extend the station's operations by four years until 2024.

The decision follows years of pressure by top NASA officials, who consider the station a critical steppingstone to future exploration. But a four-year extension likely would cost NASA about $3 billion a year from 2021 to 2024. That's a major chunk of the agency's annual budget, which is now about $17 billion, and a longer mission could force NASA to make tough financial decisions in the future.

The administration's approval, however, doesn't guarantee that the station, which has been continuously occupied since 2000, will survive past its current end date of 2020. At some point, Congress must approve a NASA budget that includes an extension of the station's life. The plan also must get the support of whoever wins the White House in 2016 though the backing of President Barack Obama now might make it harder for the next administration to renege.

Still, the move is expected to reassure NASA's international partners, who have wondered how long the U.S. plans to commit to the station. NASA's announcement coincides with a visit to Washington this week by leaders of the world's space agencies.

"Arriving at this decision in a timely and coordinated fashion will, hopefully, prove beneficial to our international partners as they struggle with decisions on funding for their space programs," NASA Chief Charlie Bolden wrote in an email to NASA and administration officials that praised the decision.

The announcement also has the potential of sending a signal to China, NASA's latest cosmic competitor.

In 2003, China become just the third country to launch an astronaut into space, and Beijing reportedly is making plans to assemble its own space station next decade.

By keeping the space station operational, NASA can maintain its own symbol of technical advancement while limiting attempts by the Chinese to woo global partners for its own outpost.

The symbolism is especially important for NASA because of the agency's recent struggles with its human-exploration program.

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ORLANDO SENTINEL EXCLUSIVE NASA gets White House backing to extend space station by 4 years

Kerbal Space Program - Apex Aeronautics [.23] - Episode 3 SPACE STATION KSP
This is the beginning of a new campaign I #39;ve started in Kerbal Space Program. I #39;m masquerading as Apex Aeronautics (a fictitious engineering company) led by ...

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Kerbal Space Program - Apex Aeronautics [.23] - Episode 3 SPACE STATION KSP - Video

The Soap Company - "New Dark Age" (Feat: Lorraine Jones)
From The Album "I Keep Dreaming About You" Available NOW on Space Station Disco records. http://www.the-soap.co/2013/11/the-soap-company-i-keep-dreaming-abou...

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January 6, 2014

Image Caption: The SPHERES-Slosh hardware used aboard the space station will help researchers study the movement of fluids in microgravity. The may assist with designing new, more efficient fuel tanks. Credit: Florida Institute of Technology/Dr. Daniel Kirk

NASA

Delivering ants to space, sloshy fluids for robotic satellites, a study on antibiotic drug resistance and other small satellites to the International Space Station can be a tough job, and now Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., can help carry the load. In its first commercial resupply journey after completion of NASAs Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, the Orbital-1 mission will deliver some very interesting new scientific investigations to the space station.

Orbitals Antares rocket is planned to launch Jan. 8 from Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia. Antares is scheduled to deliver the Cygnus spacecraft full of new research investigations, supplies and other space station hardware to the space station on Jan. 12.

One of the new research investigations traveling to the orbiting laboratory is the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus Science Insert 06: Ants in Space (CSI-06). Students in grades K-12 will observe videos of these ant-ronauts recorded by cameras on the space station. The students will also conduct their own ant interaction investigations in their classrooms as part of a related curriculum. Educational investigations such as Ants in Space are designed to motivate budding scientists in primary and secondary school to pursue their interest in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

The Ants in Space study examines the behavior of ants by comparing groups living on Earth to those in space. The idea is that ant interactions are dependent upon the number of ants in an area. Measuring these interactions may be important in determining behavior of ants in groups. This insight may add to existing knowledge of swarm intelligence, or how the complex behavior of a group is influenced by the actions of individuals. Developing a better understanding of swarm intelligence may lead to more refined mathematical procedures for solving complex problems, like routing trucks, scheduling airlines or telecommunications efficiency.

A second investigation launching with the Orbital-1 mission is the SPHERES-Slosh study. SPHERES-Slosh will use the existing space station facility of free-flying satellites known as Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES). The goal is to look at how liquids slosh around inside containers in microgravity, showing how applied external forces impact the contents of those containers. The experiments simulate how rocket fuels move around inside their tanks in response to motor thrusts used to push a rocket through space. The study of the physics of liquid motion in microgravity is important because Earths most powerful rockets use liquid fuels to take satellites and other spacecraft into orbit. Having a deeper understanding of rocket propellants may lower the cost of industry and taxpayer-funded satellite launches by improving fuel efficiency.

A third investigation aboard the Cygnus spacecraft is a study of drug-resistant bacteria. Drug-resistant bacteria are of increasing concern to public health. As bacteria grow more resistant to antibiotics, there are less effective pharmaceutical treatment options for people with bacterial infections. Researchers for the Antibiotic Effectiveness in Space (AES-1) investigation aboard the space station look to determine gene expression patterns and changes using E. coli. This research builds upon previous space station investigations into drug-resistant bacteria, such as the National Laboratory Pathfinder Vaccine Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (NLP-Vaccine-MRSA) study of what is commonly referred to as staph infection.

The findings from AES-1 may help improve antibiotic development on Earth. Improving the efficacy of antibiotics and reducing their resistance to bacteria is a priority for health care professionals.

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Orbital’s Cygnus Delivering New Science To The International Space Station

Kerbal Space Program Space Station V3 01 #1 The new design
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2014 Video: International Space Station - How Space Stations Work
Space stations allow astronauts to live and work in Earth orbit. Learn about space stations and how space stations work in this article.

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NASA Television will provide live coverage of the launch of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s commercial Cygnus spacecraft on Tuesday, Jan. 7 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, which will be carrying two University of Colorado Boulder payloads to the International Space Station.

The two CU-Boulder payloads -- a biomedical antibiotic experiment and an educational K-12 experiment involving ant behavior in microgravity -- are slated to be launched aboard Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket at 11:55 a.m. MST. Both experiments were designed by BioServe Space Technologies, a NASA-funded center in CU-Boulder's aerospace engineering sciences department.

The CU-Boulder biomedical experiment was designed to test the effectiveness of antibiotics in space. Past experiments by CU-Boulder and other institutions have shown bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics is significantly reduced during spaceflight, although the reason is not yet known, said CU-Boulder Associate Professor David Klaus, principal investigator on the project.

Klaus said the investigation will examine changes in the gene expression of the bacteria E. coli during exposure to different concentrations of antibiotics while in the microgravity environment of space. The hope is to locate particular genes that are key to resisting antibiotics, which could lead to improved testing on Earth as well as new drug targets or new approaches to understanding antibiotic resistance in certain diseases or infections, said Klaus.

"Previous studies carried out in microgravity have shown that bacteria are able to grow in what normally would be an inhibitory concentration of the antibiotic," said Klaus. "This investigation is aimed at characterizing the genetic basis for this response in the weightless environment of space with the intent of applying any insight gained toward combating the increasing emergence of drug-resistant pathogens here on Earth."

Co-investigators on the project include BioServe Director Louis Stodieck, a research professor in aerospace engineering, and Shawn Levy, a researcher at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala. The research effort also involves CU-Boulder doctoral candidate Luis Zea.

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics kills 100,000 Americans every year and represents a roughly $20 billion expense to the U.S. government in excess health care costs, said Klaus. The experiments will be undertaken using spaceflight test tubes contained in the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus, or CGBA, an automated, suitcase-sized incubator, all designed and built by BioServe.

The second experiment launching to ISS is known as Ants in Space, which examines foraging patterns based on the density of the common Pavement Ant, said BioServe Business Development Manager and Education Program Director Stefanie Countryman. "Past experiments by Professor Deborah Gordon, principal investigator on this project, have shown that some ant species have the ability to search areas collectively without individual communication. When ant densities are high, each ant thoroughly searches one small area in a circular, "random" walk, she said. When ant densities are low, each ant searches by walking in a relatively straight line, allowing it to cover more ground.

"Ants assess their own density at the rate at which they meet," said Countryman, who said the eight individual ant habitats on ISS will be loaded with roughly 100 ants each. "The experiment examines whether in microgravity ants will use the rate at which they meet to assess density, and so use straighter paths in the larger habitat areas. The results will be compared to ground controls, which in this case will include ant habitats in hundreds of K-12 classrooms around the world."

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CU-Boulder to fly antibiotic experiment, education project on ants to space station

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The New Kerbal Space Station
Had to restart... Brought to you by, -Frodo.

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Hey Guys AssassinsGamez here! Played some space station 13, and i killed 4 people with DeadlyxGamerz! FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Assassinsgamez CHANN...

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