Space Quote: NASA’s Space Expertise at Risk of Eroding

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Image (Credit): The Artemis-1 rocket next to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 3, 2022. (Voice of America)

“Extreme caution is needed to ensure that NASA’s critical relationships with commercial partners do not erode NASA’s own expertise, particularly in early-phase developmental efforts, and the agency should work to maintain a balance between benefiting from its partners’ capabilities and maintaining advanced internal skills. The report recommends that NASA drastically increase its investment in internal research and development to advance early-stage, mission-critical technologies that are not commercially available currently. It also makes a range of recommendations for maintaining an expert workforce, including the adoption of a new human capital strategy, and coordination with Congress to refresh the NASA Flexibility Act of 2004 and gain more appointment and hiring authority.”

-September 10, 2024 press statement for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s recent report NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades. The report was requested by Congress in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an independent expert committee to evaluate whether NASA’s current workforce, infrastructure, technological capabilities, and their interfaces can meet its strategic goals. 

Pic of the Week: The First Commercial Spacewalk

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Image (Credit): SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew conducts first private spacewalk. (SpaceX/Polaris)

This week’s image shows the first commercial spacewalk as part of the Polaris Dawn mission launched into space earlier this week by SpaceX. All four crew members were exposed to space as part of the process earlier today, but only two exited the spacecraft. The spacecraft was between 118 to 435 miles above the Earth during the spacewalks.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson posted this comment to Twitter/X:

Congratulations @PolarisProgram and @SpaceX on the first commercial spacewalk in history!

Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry and @NASA ‘s long-term goal to build a vibrant U.S. space economy.

So Did NASA Make the Right Call with Starliner?

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Image (Credit): The Starliner capsule in White Sands, NM. (Boeing Space)

So now that the Starliner capsule is back here on Earth, some may wonder if it was necessary to return it without a crew.

Here is what Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, had to say during a post-landing press conference:

If we’d have had a crew on board the spacecraft, we would have followed the same back away sequence from the space station, the same deorbit burn and executed the same entry. And so it would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board.

So that is good news for Boeing, but not likely to thrill Boeing stockholders. No matter how you spin it, only a crewed return would have been seen as a success.

It also appears the flight back was not quite as simple as portrayed by Mr. Stich’s initial statement. For instance, a Quartz article noted that during the capsule’s return another thruster failed and the guidance system blacked out for a moment.

Boeing has been pretty quite on the issue. Its latest update had a simple statement about the landing and an uncertain comment about “next steps”:

Boeing’s Starliner landed safely at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, Sept. 7 (10:01 p.m. Mountain time, on Friday, Sept. 6). After an extended stay at the International Space Station, Starliner’s reusable crew module touched down at its designated landing site, White Sands Space Harbor at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

“I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. “We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”

The Starliner crew module will be transported back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where Boeing teams will analyze mission data.

Maybe when cooler heads prevail over at Boeing we will learn more. I just hope they are still in the game.

Space Stories: Polaris Dawn Mission Starts, Report Blasts NASA, and Galaxies Are Larger Than We Thought

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Here are some recent stories of interest.

—NASA: “NASA to Test Telemedicine, Gather Essential Health Data with Polaris Dawn Crew“

NASA researchers will soon benefit from a suite of experiments flying aboard a new fully-commercial human spaceflight mission, strengthening future agency science as we venture to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The experiments are flying as part of the Polaris Dawn mission which launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket earlier today…“Each mission, whether the crew is comprised of commercial or NASA astronauts, provides a key opportunity to expand our knowledge about how spaceflight affects human health,” said Jancy McPhee, associate chief scientist for human research at NASA. “Information gathered from Polaris Dawn will give us critical insights to help NASA plan for deeper space travel to the Moon and Mars.”

—Flying Magazine: “Report to Congress: Shortsighted, Aging NASA Faces Uncertain Future“

A report published Tuesday raises serious questions about NASA’s ability to effectively function as the nation’s preeminent space agency. The 218-page document, assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) at the behest of Congress, warns that NASA is prioritizing short-term missions and commercial contracts over the people and technology that make its out-of-this-world activities possible. Per the report, the space agency’s emphasis on near-term victories and overreliance on private contractors comes at the price of a strained budget, degraded infrastructure, and exodus of talented personnel.

—Astro3D: “Galaxies are Much, Much Bigger Than We Thought“

A shroud of gas stretches up to a million light years around every galaxy and is its first interaction with the wider Universe beyond. For the first time, scientists have photographed this halo of matter and examined it pixel by pixel. If this galaxy is typical, then the study, published today in Nature Astronomy, indicates that our galaxy is already interacting with its closest neighbour, Andromeda.

Space Quote: Exciting Days Ahead for the US Space Program

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Image (Credit): An image of Buzz Aldrin’s bootprint on the lunar surface from the Apollo 11 mission. (NASA)

“After having no other U.S. options for over 30 years, three different human spacecraft programs are now underway. In addition to the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the Boeing Starliner, NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission, is planned to fly four astronauts around the Moon in the next couple of years. These programs have had setbacks and bumps along the way – and there will be more – but I haven’t been this excited about human spaceflight since I was an 11-year-old cheering for Apollo and dreaming about putting the first human footprints on Mars.”

–Statement by former commander of the International Space Station Michael Fossum when asked by The Conversation about NASA’s decision to return the craft uncrewed, the future of the Starliner program and its crew’s extended stay at the space station.