Launch Water Day 2
Quick Recap of Launch Water Day 2:
Innovator Stephen Kennedy Smith: Verticrop. “Large-Scale Vertical Hydroponic Ag System”
Archive for 'nasa'
Heavenly Answers for Earthly Problems
I’m SO excited to share details about NASA’s newest, coolest, never-been-done-before sustainability initiative, LAUNCH:Water.
Looking forward
I wish more people could be here at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation conference in Crystal City. The commercial space community is so vibrant and eager to step up to the challenges ahead.
DoD is looking to them to help usher in an era of operationally responsive space access.
The challenge and the opportunity
The new NASA budget is a fundamental challenge to the way we operate in the human spaceflight community. It asks us to stop expecting Washington or another JFK to tell us what to do and demands that we determine what we can offer the nation and set out to break as many boundaries as we can, while respecting the fiscal realities this country faces.
We can either fight this “paradigm shift,” as some have called it, or we can embrace it and make it our own. Human space exploration is not going to die because of the cancellation of the Constellation program. The American human space program itself will only die if we fail to rise to this challenge. The NASA community has core assets and capabilities, such as the premier ability of JSC’s Mission Operations Directorate to conduct launch, ascent, and reentry of human crews, that must be conserved and shared if we are to succeed.
The new NASA
The reports on the “death” of America’s manned space program are greatly exaggerated. Contrary to the opinions of some, I think the new budget proposal for NASA is a much-needed course correction that brings the agency back to a focus on its core strengths – research, development, and exploration.
Yes, the Constellation Program will be canceled. The Ares I and V booster rockets and the Orion crew exploration vehicle are going away. The Space Shuttle will be retired as scheduled. In their place will be a robust commercial Low Earth Orbit capability built on the premise of multiple providers competing to provide NASA the best offer for services. NASA will also fund a significant heavy-lift R&D program, likely based out of Marshall Space Flight Center, to develop “game changing” and affordable new rocket technologies.
Dreading the end of the Space Shuttle Program
Note: The intent of this post is not to express an opinion on the path that should be taken by NASA or its future programs. It is simply an observation from someone experiencing the end of an era.
Have you ever had the feeling of grieving even before a loss? You see it coming and know there’s nothing you can do. Your senses are heightened to every little intricacy and you want to preserve all the details before it is too late. That is the way I feel about the Space Shuttle Program. I’ve worked at the Kennedy Space Center in various areas for roughly the past eight years. That makes me practically a newbie to most of my co-workers, but it feels like a long time to me. Long enough for KSC to feel like home. It is strange and sad to think that it will all be over in a matter of months.
Space: What’s NOT to Hope for?
At the NASA tweet-up down at the Kennedy Space Center for the STS-129 launch a reporter asked me a question that really threw me. Here, a week later, I’m still thinking about it. He asked:
“Do you think bringing tweeters here gives NASA hope for the future.”
Social Media Awards: Space Picks
Mashable.com is hosting the 3rd Annual Open Web Awards Social Media Edition. Pete Cashmore set up awards that ensure we keep the buzz going linking back to his site. Brilliant! We can nominate our favorites in multiple social media-related categories.
The catch: we nominate once a day in each of the 50 categories throughNovember 15th…AND only the top five nominations in each category move forward to the voting round.
NASA: Cultural Dust Storm
When everyone was looking for moondust from the LCROSS mission to crash land into the moon, I noticed something else — a cultural dust storm inside the agency. Did you see it too?
We heavily publicized the “moon landing” prior to Friday’s event. In Washington DC, the Newseum hosted our “Let’s Kick Up Some Moon Dust” party. (Even my mother received an email from NASA inviting her to attend. Not sure exactly how THAT happened. No matter.)
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