Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Monday, June 05, 2006

See you in two months.

Looks like NASA is still at work in planning for going to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond.

InsideKSC Yahoo groups had a post, NASA Announces Distribution of Constellation Work.
- LRK -

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NASA Announces Distribution of Constellation Work http://groups.yahoo.com/group/inside_ksc/

NASA Announces Distribution of Constellation Work Monday June 5, 1:15 pm ET WASHINGTON, June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA announced Monday agency center responsibilities associated with the Constellation Program for Posted - Mon Jun 5, 2006 1:16 pm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/inside_ksc/message/12789?l=1

[If you need to join to read, then that would be good too.]
- LRK -
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SpaceRef.com also has the info.
- LRK -
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NASA Announces Distribution of Constellation Work
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=20003

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If you want to know what your favorite NASA Center's piece of the pie is you might want to check and follow up on.

Here is the NASA link with some graphics.
- LRK -

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Building NASA's New Spacecraft: Constellation Work Assignments http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/spacecraft/work_assign.html

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Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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THE DAY IN SPACE
__________________
In today's space news from SpaceRef:


-- NASA Update with the Administrator
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=20830

[Looks like I missed the above as it was scheduled for 1 p.m. EDT 5 June.]
- LRK -

>From: KSC-Internal-Comm
>Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 8:04 AM
>To:
>Subject: NASA Update with the Administrator - June 5

NASA Update with the Administrator - June 5: Distribution of Constellation Work Among NASA Centers

You are invited to join Administrator Michael Griffin for a special NASA Update on Monday, June 5, at 1 p.m. EDT, live from NASA Headquarters. The program will be broadcast on NASA TV and will be available on the Internet.

During this NASA Update, the administrator will announce the center responsibilities associated with the Constellation Program for human moon and Mars exploration. The distribution of work will reflect the agency's intention to productively use personnel, facilities and resources from across the agency to accomplish the Vision for Space Exploration. During the program, employees will be able to ask questions from headquarters and participating NASA centers. If you cannot ask your question live during the program, you can send it by e-mail to nasaupdate@hq.nasa.gov

Please join the administrator for this important NASA Update, June 5 at 1 p.m. EDT.

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-- NASA Announces Distribution of Constellation Work
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=20003

"NASA announced Monday agency center responsibilities associated with the Constellation Program for robotic and human moon and Mars exploration. This distribution of work across NASA's centers reflects the agency's intention to productively use personnel, facilities and resources from across the agency to accomplish the Vision for Space Exploration."

This distribution of work across NASA's centers reflects the agency's intention to productively use personnel, facilities and resources from across the agency to accomplish the Vision for Space Exploration.

"Our past experiences have provided the foundation to begin shaping the space exploration capabilities needed to create a sustained presence on the moon and on to Mars," said Scott Horowitz, associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. "Our programs and projects are evolving as we develop the requirements to execute the Vision for Space Exploration. At the same time we are aligning the work that needs to be accomplished with the capabilities of our NASA centers."

In addition to primary work assignments each center will support moon and Mars surface systems conceptual designs. Centers also support additional Constellation program and project activities. Center assignments:

Snip
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/spacecraft/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/index.html

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Saturday, June 03, 2006

Jun 03 - Asteroid 2004 DC Near-Earth Flyby (0.026 AU)

Do you remember back in February 2004?
- LRK -

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http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/mn/0402/19.htm
- NEODyS has posted 2004 DC & 2004 DD
http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/mn/0402/19.htm#risks
Risk monitoring 19 Feb.

NEODyS has joined JPL in posting 2004 DC and also today has posted 2004 DD.
The latter was announced yesterday in MPEC 2004-D07 as discovered Tuesday morning by Arianna Gleason with the Spacewatch 0.9m telescope in Arizona and confirmed over the next night by KLENOT in the Czech Republic, the Starkenburg Observatory team at Calar Alto in Spain, and Arianna Gleason with the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope. From its brightness (JPL H=17.89), this object is roughly estimated at 895 meters/yards wide.

None of the objects listed with impact solutions and currently in view were reported in the Thursday Daily Orbit Update MPEC.


http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/mn/0402/24.htm
Summary Risk Table - sources checked at 2359 UTC, 24 Feb [See bottom right side of page. - LRK -]
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Well its back.

What goes around, comes around, and around, and around, until maybe oops.
- LRK -

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http://www.morien-institute.org/skywatch2006.html

Skywatching Calendar 2006
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Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
=============================================================

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/calendar/
Snip

# Jun 03 - Asteroid 2004 DC Near-Earth Flyby (0.026 AU)
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db_shm?des=2004+DC
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Unusual/K04D00C.html
# Jun 03 - New[Jun 01] Asteroid 2006 KJ89 Near-Earth Flyby (0.098 AU)
# Jun 03 - Asteroid 232 Russia Closest Approach To Earth (1.226 AU)
# Jun 03 - 40th Anniversary (1966), Gemini 9 Launch (Thomas Stafford & Eugene Cernan)
# Jun 03-04 - 3rd CFD Drag Prediction Workshop, San Francisco, California


Snip
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Space Weather News for June 3, 2006
http://spaceweather.com

What's Up in Space -- 3 Jun 2006

STRANGE CLOUDS; Last night, sky watchers in Northern Ireland witnessed a vivid display of electric-blue noctilucent clouds. Also known as "NLCs," these clouds float through the outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere at the very edge of space. They are most often seen from far-northern places such as Scandinavia or Canada, but in recent years they have been spotted as far south as Colorado and Utah. Last night's display marks the beginning of the
2006 noctilucent cloud season. Visit http://spaceweather.com for observing tips and a gallery of recent sightings.

Snip

BINARY ASTEROID: Asteroid 2004 DC is flying by Earth today about 2.5 million miles away. Yesterday, astronomers using the giant Arecibo radar in Puerto Rico pinged the asteroid and discovered that it is actually two asteroids--a 60m rock orbiting a 300m rock. Researchers estimate that one in six near-Earth asteroids are binaries.

Snip
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http://www.naic.edu/vscience/schedule/tpfiles/TaylortagR2208tp.pdf

Technical Page
Proposal Type: Regular
General Category: Planetary Radar
Observation Category: Solar System

Total Time Requested: 10 Hours

Proposal Title: Physical Characterization of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid
2004 DC

ABSTRACT:
We request 10 hours of Arecibo S-band planetary radar time to physically characterize potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid 2004 DC. This is both the first opportunity to observe this 0.7 - 1.5 km diameter (H = 18.1) asteroid with radar and a rare opportunity to observe a large near-Earth asteroid at a signal-to-noise ratio of several thousand per run. Radar observations will refine the orbit of 2004 DC, describe its surface morphology and radar reflection properties, and constrain its size, shape, and spin state. High resolution radar imaging will resolve geologic features several meters in size and determine if 2004 DC has any satellites.

Snip
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http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html
PHA Close Approaches To The Earth
The following table lists the predicted encounters by Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) to within 0.05 AU of the earth from the start of this year through 2178. Objects with very uncertain orbits are excluded from this listing, as are recently discovered objects whose orbits have been computed without consideration of planetary perturbations. The distances quoted are from the nominal orbit solutions in the cited references and can be quite uncertain, particularly for one-opposition objects. Perturbed orbital solutions consider perturbations by eight major planets (Mercury to Neptune), three minor planets (Ceres, Pallas and Vesta) and treat the earth and the moon as separate perturbing bodies. For comparison, the mean distance of the moon is 0.0026 AU = 384400 km = 238900 miles. (1 AU is approximately the mean distance of the earth from the sun = 149597870 km = 92955810 miles.)

Object (and name) Date of encounter (TT) Distance Orbit arc
Reference Object (and name)

Snip JD Calendar AU
2004 DC 2453890.33 2006 June 3.83 0.02586 2 oppositions,
2004-2006 E2006-L08 2004 DC
Snip
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http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Dangerous.html
List Of The Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs)

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/InnerPlot2.html
Plot of the Innermost Solar System

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Animations/Animations.html
The Animations Page
Here are links to a number of animations prepared at the Minor Planet Center. They are not intended as rigorous depictions of the past and future motions of the objects concerned (although at the scales of these diagrams, any difference would probably not be noticeable), rather they are intended to assist in understanding the state of knowledge about the contents of the solar system ("A picture is worth a thousand words").
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http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/
Snip
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

Below is the list of the 793 known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids.
Click on any name to see the object's orbit.

Snip
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Thursday, June 01, 2006

NASA Administrator Griffin Visits Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sees Stable Future.

Leave for Thailand Tuesday morning for two months so you will have time to contemplate your summer vacation plans without interruption from me. :-)
- LRK -

Spaceref had the following link to an article about where the Jet Propulsion Laboratory stands in respect to manpower limitations under the funding limitations that concern NASA.
- LRK -
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http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20785

Snip
In the future he expects JPL to continue to attract new business by competing for missions, but, "If I think JPL is in danger of falling below having the right amount of work to cover the JPL staff, then I will do as I have done at other places I will find you a mission. If you can win enough to keep up the level you're at, you don't need me to do anything."

However, he discouraged JPLers from going after major new work that would drive the lab's workforce beyond the current level. "If you kill more than you can eat, I'll probably ask you to send some of that somewhere else."

"A gain in people at one center is a loss in people at another center, or it is a removal of dollars from industry into the federal civil service," said Griffin. "That's not acceptable. And it's not acceptable to be moving people and moving significant numbers of jobs from one center to another."

In response to a question, Griffin also said he hopes Congress will not restore cuts he made in the proposed fiscal year 2007 budget for scientific research and analysis. "I hope Congress won't restore it, because it will come at the expense of a mission," he said. "The budget I put forward is the best budget I can do given all the constraints I have. If you push on the bean bag somewhere, it will pop out somewhere else. There will be other unhappy people, they will just be in other zip codes."

Griffin cited the importance of placing humans and cargo in low- Earth orbit "an essential first step" in the next stage of exploration. "It's got to be done right," he said.
Snip
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One of the paragraphs that caught my eye is the one above. Let me copy it again.

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In response to a question, Griffin also said he hopes Congress will not restore cuts he made in the proposed fiscal year 2007 budget for scientific research and analysis. "I hope Congress won't restore it, because it will come at the expense of a mission," he said. "The budget I put forward is the best budget I can do given all the constraints I have. If you push on the bean bag somewhere, it will pop out somewhere else. There will be other unhappy people, they will just be in other zip codes."
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I hope those in our government will not fight against Griffin by redirecting the money that has been allocated. Now if they want to add real money to do what everyone wants, well sounds good to me. Don't see that happening though with all the money the government is spending elsewhere. Hurricane season is just around the corner and folks are building homes in harms way. War machines get funding too. Hmmmm.

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
=============================================================
THE DAY IN SPACE
__________________
In today's space news from SpaceRef:

-- NASA Administrator Griffin Visits Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sees Stable Future
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=20785

"Given the prospect of a flat NASA budget for the years ahead, Griffin told the Tuesday gathering in von Karman Auditorium that his biggest challenge has been to find a way to fund missions under the Vision for Space Exploration while maintaining stable workforces at each of the agency's 10 field centers."

He said that the cut in JPL's workforce last fall from 5,400 employees and contractors to about 5,000 was driven by the fact that the previous level was based on expectations of growth in NASA's science programs that couldn't be maintained given the budget cap and his charter to remake NASA's human program. "I felt I had no choice but to nip that in the bud," he said. "I did feel that I could maintain a commitment to a 5,000-person laboratory. I'm committed to a stable, viable, healthy JPL at that level."

Griffin said his biggest immediate challenge has been to find work for NASA's traditional research/aeronautics centers. "I don't have that problem right now at JPL," he said, adding that the lab's current workload appears to be sufficient to keep the workforce stable.

Snip
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/main/index.html
The Vision For Space Exploration
Snip

NASA has chosen the RS-68 engine to power the core stage of the agency's heavy lift cargo launch vehicle intended to carry large payloads to the moon. The announcement supersedes NASA's initial decision to use a derivative of the space shuttle main engine as the core stage engine for the heavy lift launch vehicle.

The cargo launch vehicle will serve as NASA's primary vessel for safe, reliable delivery of resources to space. It will carry large-scale hardware and materials for establishing a permanent moon base, as well as food, fresh water and other staples needed to extend a human presence beyond Earth orbit.

Snip
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http://careerlaunch.jpl.nasa.gov/
The JPL Career Launch Website

Snip
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Moon and Mars - Videos

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