Florida is not content with just winning the assembly and launch work for NASA’s next human spaceship.

Gov. Jeb Bush and the president of the state’s new space agency say they aim to capture more pieces of NASA’s next moon-landing program as well as investment and jobs created by space tourism and other private space businesses.

“We need to attract high-wage jobs,” Bush said. “We need to target our resources for high wage jobs in targeted areas and space is one of them.”

Space Florida, meeting Friday for the first time under new president Steve Kohler, mostly took care of basic transition housekeeping such as approving an initial $8.5 million annual budget and establishing target deadlines for hiring staff, reports and planning documents. Still, the governor and several of his highest-ranking economic development officials traveled to Kennedy Space Center to gather with the Space Florida board to get started on the new agency’s work.

Kohler, who took over the agency less than three weeks ago, gave the board of directors and the governor’s contingent a broad overview of the agency’s strategy going forward. While the strategy and detailed plans are still being defined, the highlights of the work to be done in the months and years ahead are:

• Making sure the state does what it can to maintain the skilled workers that could otherwise be lost when the shuttle program retires in 2010 and NASA begins transitioning to a new vehicle that is intended to be maintained and flown by far fewer people.
• Trying to land more of the support businesses, such as suppliers, for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. Lockheed Martin Corp. has committed to do final assembly of the new Apollo-like spacecraft at a state-refurbished building at Kennedy Space Center. Now, the state wants to capture as many spinoff businesses as possible.
• Assessing the projects, commitments and property holdings of several space-related agencies that are being folded into the new Space Florida. For example, Kohler said the new organization wants to make sure that it is enabling new investment in space but not necessarily being the owner and operator of lots of buildings and facilities. Members of the board toured some key state-owned or state-financed facilities at KSC and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as part of Friday’s daylong activities.

Approximately half of the agency’s $8.5 million goes to operating expenses such as paying salaries and benefits and fixed costs for facilities such as the Space Life Sciences Laboratory constructed near KSC. The other half goes for economic development projects and other incentives aimed at luring new space jobs to Florida, whether from existing aerospace companies or the creation of new companies.

“We need to stay in the specialty spaces, the high end niches,” the governor said. The state will thrive there because those sectors, such as space, will bring in higher-paying specialty jobs that will help grow the state’s economy. That makes the new space agency important to state’s overall economic development strategy, Bush said.

In other business, the board voted to increase the loan the state has helped secure to finance a new shuttle simulator ride at the Visitor Complex from $35 million to $40 million. The complex operator, Delaware North Park Services, is constructing a ride aimed at giving tourists a chance to experience what it feels like to launch in a space shuttle. The Shuttle Launch Experience is set to open later this spring. The additional funds will pay for enhanced services around the ride, such as a pizza restaurant, better landscaping and a Kodak photo stand, officials said. The ride will be paid for over time with a portion of the tourist complex’s ticket sales.

Charming cottage, secluded location, stunning panoramic views…

A Swedish artist has asked experts to help design one of Sweden’s iconic little red cottages – but this one will stand on the Moon.

Mikael Genberg has recruited the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) to help plan the operation.

The little red houses are found across the Swedish countryside, but Mr Genberg says he wants this one to become “an international symbol”.

He says if everything goes to plan, the house may appear on the Moon in 2011.

Mr Genberg has arranged a competition for students and companies to design a house that could be contained in a small, light package, that would open up once landed on the Moon’s surface.

“The house itself is supposed to be very small… the package will build itself up to a house,” Mr Genberg told the BBC’s Europe Today programme.

“It’s going to be an unmanned landing – we hope it’s going to land in 2011.”

“It has to be very, very light, but so that it in some way hardens so that it stands for thousands of years when it’s up there.”

There were two main reasons for the project, he said.

“First we want to prove that the impossible is possible.

“But when we put this house on the Moon, which is a kind of Swedish endeavour right now, we want to make it an international symbol… it will represent the position of our own planet in the universe, like a fragile thing.”

He hoped the house might have a practical use, too.

“We know where the Americans want to land people in 2020… It would be nice if we had a house for them when they come,” he said.

The state-owned SSC has been happy to get involved in the project, which could cost 500m kroner (£36m).

“If we manage to do this Sweden will be the third country to occupy the moon”, the SSC’s Fredrik von Scheele told the Swedish newspaper The Local.

MOSCOW, Oct. 18 — Russia is building a new spaceship that can fly to the moon.

Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of Russia’s Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, told RIA Novosti the final design of a modernized spaceship has been given the working name of Soyuz-K.

Sevastyanov said the new spaceship is being designed so it can be launched both from the Baikonur space center and equatorial Kourou space center, RIA Novosti reported.

He said Russia plans to conduct its first manned flight around the moon in 2011-2012.

For the past 10 minutes, I’ve been trying to nuzzle the Orion space capsule up to the International Space Station to dock, but I keep drifting left, smack into a European lab.

Then I look slightly past the flat-panel screen that displays my incompetence with the joystick, through the window and straight up. I see the moon. It’s filling the view and grabs my attention from the docking job at hand.

The moon is what this is all about.

I’m in a full-scale mock-up of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle that’s supposed to replace the space shuttle fleet and eventually take astronauts back to the moon. The actual ship is still a few years away from being built, and it won’t fly until at least 2013.

Two weeks before my test drive, NASA awarded Lockheed Martin an $8 billion contract to build Orion, a capsule NASA refers to as “Apollo on steroids.” It’s the latest in a long line of planned next-generation spaceships for NASA, none of which has ever taken off.

Lockheed Martin built the mock-up to help understand the volume and geometry involved in the design and construction of the Orion. NASA has developed its own model, which is slightly different.

“It starts to give you an idea of the real size involved,” said Cleon Lacefield, Lockheed Martin’s vice president and the company’s Orion program manager. “It really comes up to be pretty spacious.”

Three other people are standing in the capsule and Marc Sommers, a Lockheed Martin avionics engineer, is sitting in the seat left of me, trying to get me to dock correctly.

This capsule is downright roomy. If the Apollo capsules were Volkswagen Beetles from the 1960s, cramped but useful, then Orion seems like a 1990s minivan, extended version. It’s good enough for a long road trip, which is pretty much what NASA envisions in a three-day one-way trip to the moon.

NASA Orion project manager Skip Hatfield said it was designed to be much more spacious per crew member than Apollo. Unlike Apollo, which had three astronauts, Orion will carry four astronauts to the moon, six for the much shorter hop to International Space Station.

So for the lunar trip, Orion will have about 95 cubic feet per astronaut, compared with 70 cubic feet per Apollo astronaut. Orion’s trip to the space station will be a little more crowded, with each of the six astronauts getting 63 cubic feet.

It looks even roomier because there’s no other equipment inside the Orion capsule. While most of the gear will be stored below and behind the capsule interior, stuff has a way of accumulating inside a vehicle so Orion will get to seem more crowded, Hatfield said.

There are actually two connected simulators here. One is a standard-seat model with a lot of screens and the sounds of jets. The other, which I used, offers no sounds and only one screen and a joystick a tad better than the run-of-the-mill video game. The ship doesn’t move, but it has a sense of realism because you are inside a large capsule in the prone position.

Before I get into position to simulate docking, Sommers and Hatfield tell me it’s easy. I say I’ve never flown a simulation successfully because of bad hand-eye coordination. Even an 8-year-old docked successfully when Lockheed Martin allowed families a sneak peak, Sommers said.

Once inside, I find myself in a reclining z-shape, sitting on my back with my thighs straight up, my calves horizontal and my head looking up at the screen.

Then I tried to dock. And failed. I lined up in front of the docking ring and went astray — far astray, almost leaving the space station environs. Sommers kept giving me tips and I kept moving the joystick wrong.

Maybe it’s because I can’t hear the thrusters in the simulator, Sommers offers as an excuse. That’s not it.

To my credit, I never actually crashed. After about 15 minutes of drifting away and inching back only to drift away again, I just gave up. I quit. It was humiliating and others were waiting to take this baby out for a spin — and probably laughing.

It’s just that this spaceship needs a better driver.

Dan Dumbacher, deputy director of the Exploration Launch Projects Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., helps manage and lead overall development and integration of the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicle systems.

NASA’s Ares I is the launch vehicle that will transport the Orion crew exploration vehicle to space. Ares V will serve as NASA’s primary vessel for delivering resources to space — from large-scale hardware and materials to establish a permanent moon base, to food and fresh water needed to extend a human presence beyond Earth orbit.

NASA is beginning detailed planning for the first round of flight tests for the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), with documentation – acquired by this site – showing the full outlines of the test flight objectives.

The first flight, Ares I-1, will be a suborbital test of the booster with an inert fifth SRB segment and a dummy second stage with steel-filled propellant tanks and mock-up engines.

The test flight, originally called ADFT-0 (Ascent Development Flight Test-0), is currently scheduled to take place in April 2009 at a cost of about $300 million.

The flight will provide a simulation of the performance of the first stage of the Ares I and a test of the staging sequence. The flight is to be suborbital and will test the effect of the maximum dynamic pressure being exerted on the vehicle.

The booster which is slated to make this flight, called the Flight Test Vehicle (FTV), will be integrated at KSC shortly before launch, and will not have the capability to receive commands from the ground while in flight (though telemetry will be returned). The first stage of the vehicle will be recovered and returned after staging.

The only active part of the FTV will be the bottom four SRB segments on the launchers first stage. The fifth segment will be a real SRM, but empty of propellant. NASA refers to this configuration as ‘4-segment XL’. This stage is about 167 feet high and 12 feet across at the SRMs, widening to 18 feet in diameter at the frustum.

The first stage will include the recovery systems that might be present on the actual Ares I first stage. An interstage, frustum, and forward skirts will separate the 4-segment XL stage from the upper stage.

The upper stage simulator (USS) to be carried on this flight. will be completely inert but will have an outer mold line identical to that of the planned Ares I upper stage.

A decision has been made to replace originally planned water ballast on this stage with 20,000 lbs of steel ballast. However, it will still be the ‘Tuna Can’ design, allowing worker access into the upper stage during stacking, and whilst on the launch pad.

A simulator for the CEV and launch abort system (LAS) will also be carried on this flight, again with an identical outer mold line, and very similar mass, volume and center of gravity to the real vehicle. This boilerplate CEV and LAS will not be recovered.

The second stage will separate from the first near the flights apogee and will provide a simulation of the performance of the interstage. The entire time of powered flight for the vehicle will last for just over two minutes.

The flight will be launched from Launch Complex 39B at KSC and will also include a test of the vehicles RCS.

The CEV physical model is comprised of the following: mass and volume simulators of a Crew Module (CM), a Service Module (SM), a Spacecraft Adapter (SA) for mounting to the USS; and attachment mechanisms between the CM, SM, and SA. The combination CEV/LAS will have the same OML, weight, and CG as that of the actual CEV/LAS.

The flight vehicle will be shipped to KSC in segments, where it will be assembled. The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) will be used to stack the system prior to transporting it to launch complex 39B. Integration at KSC also includes installation, checkout ,and servicing of the Reaction Control System (RCS) and the avionics. Some segments of the vehicle have already been fabricated.

There are five primary objectives for this test flight. They encompass flight control, First Stage-USS separation, First Stage re-entry, launch processing, and First Stage roll torque. The success of this flight test will be determined by the degree these objectives are met.

Prototype CLV parachutes should be used to accomplish primary objective. These parachutes are already undergoing testing at the US Army range in Arizona. Tests have so far been successful.

Updated information points to the possibility that the LAS will indeed by tested – pending Lockheed Martin being able to support the test launch date. The dummy Orion on top of Ares I-1 won’t be recovered, with the test simulating a failed upper stage engine start – evaluating how the LAS performs in a live test.

Some of the biggest challenges for the vehicle will be on lift-off, with data showing how the TVC (Thrust Vector Control) handles the rise off the launch pad, plus the ride through Max Q, which some sources note concern over the structural integrity of the intertank section of the ‘stick’.

However, given the nature of the Ares I-1 vehicle, most of the systems that will undergo testing will be below the upper stage. Up to four test flights will be carried out in total, before the targeted 2014 debut manned mission.

NASA’s Orion crew vehicle’s smart cockpit will monitor the vehicle’s health, use synthetic, enhanced and virtual vision systems, have advanced on-screen symbology and may eventually employ a talking computer.

The Lockheed Martin-built Orion will use a glass cockpit that is derived from Honeywell’s Boeing 787 flight deck technology. Orion’s cockpit computers will carry out routine and repetitive system monitoring tasks, which Apollo-era astronauts had to do themselves.

Vehicle health management software is seen as key to automating this activity so the cockpit system only informs the astronauts, and ground control, about the spacecraft’s status when necessary. While the Shuttle’s cockpit’s screens are filled with data that astronauts have to interpret and act on, Orion’s displays will use graphics along with enhanced synthetic vision and additional flight related symbology.

The Orion’s symbology could include a pathway through the sky. There will also be software tools for astronauts to have enhanced situational awareness, which is the goal of the smart cockpit. NASA Ames Research Center is working on constraint based planning for Orion’s smart cockpit. Ames’ exploration technology director’s senior advisor Anthony Gross says, “we’re trying to get [Clarissa] implemented on Orion but it will probably be a later version.” Clarissa is software that guides astronauts through procedures for operating or maintaining space vehicle systems using natural language interaction, talking, with the crew member via a headset. It has been tested on the International Space Station.

NASA is extending a contract with ATK Thiokol of Brigham City, Utah, to continue developing the first stage for the Ares I crew launch vehicle.Ares I is the crew launch vehicle that will transport the Orion crew exploration vehicle, its crew or other small cargo payloads into low-Earth orbit. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the first stage will consist of a single solid rocket booster similar to those used on the space shuttle, but with a fifth motor segment added.

The upper stage will consist of a J-2X liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen engine and the associated propellant tanks and main propulsion system.

The contract modification — valued at $35 million — also provides support for an initial test flight in the spring of 2009 known as Ares I-1. NASA says that test flight will involve the use of a simulated fifth segment on the first stage motor and a simulated upper stage.

NASA has awarded a contract extension worth up to $35 million to a subsidiary of Alliant Techsystems Inc. This is for work on the Orion spaceship program.

This is in addition to a $28 million contract awarded to ATK Thiokol for the development of booster rockets for Ares 1 – the vehicle used to launch the Orion spaceship.  The extension of the contract will focus on nozzle metal hardware and maintain design and engineering analysis for a systems review to be held during December of 2006.  The contract extension will also be used for an initial test launch of Ares 1 during 2009.

A U.S. scientist says human missions to Mars face technical challenges well beyond those faced during the exploration of the moon.

In two new papers, Donald Rapp, formerly with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reviews the current state of our understanding of life support and radiation safety and concludes that significant additional research will be required before safe and affordable human missions to Mars can become a reality.

Rapp reviews the current state of the understanding of life support for human missions to Mars and concludes current plans for life support contain optimistic assumptions regarding the degree of recycling and reliability that can be achieved and the amount of mass that life support systems may require.

In his second paper, he compares and contrasts the levels of radiation shielding required for human missions to the moon and Mars and finds currently planned missions to both bodies are not without potentially serious radiation risks.

Both papers are published in the current issue of The Mars Journal, a peer reviewed, open-access journal focused on Mars science, exploration and policy.