5:10pm A presentation will be by Dr Laurie Leshin, Deputy Associate administrator, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. Title : “New Oppurtunities in the President’s FY2011 Budget”

5:12pm Speaker is not dressed in back. While there are people downstairs pre-lecture drinking in the bar, I don’t think it will be too awful. I fear for man (or at least manned space exploration) but I trust in science (or at least Obama’s support of science and science ed)

5:14pm This liveblog is made possible by my Verizon 3G cell card and the power strip under the mixing board (and the help of the friendly person manning the mixing board).

5:19pm They are now micing people up and the room is filling.

5:24pm New slide show on screen “Planetary Science Division Program Status” by James L Green, Director, Planetary Science Division

5:33pm Getting started with about 950 people in the room.

5:34pm Jim Green speaking first, then Laurie (introducer had to double check titles since everyone at NASA is moving around HQ)

5:35 Many changes in NASA HQ. Some friendly faces retiring: Marilyn Lindstrom I’ll miss, along with Karen McBride, Tom Morgan and Dave Lindstrom. Coming in are Kristen Erickson, Jeff Grossman, Amy Kaminski, Tiffany Nail, and Andrea Razzaghi. There are likely to be more hires in future.

5:38pm Three New Frontiers announced: MoonRIse (SPA Basin Sample Return), OSIRIS-Rex (Asteroid Sample return), SAGE (Venus Lander) Go forth and steal rocks!

5:42pm Top Line budget: Earth Science +29%!

5:45pm Total SMD Budget Increased (FY11-10) by $512M. New Initiatives: New Climate initiative at $380M & Planetary Science growing $145M! This is not costing other directorate’s budgets

5:46 Bugets

Approved Cassini “Solctice” mission through 2017

• NEO identification and characterization not at $16M/yr – major increase in funding
• Cost sharing arrangement with DOE to restart Pu-238 production
• Continues to operate 11 planetary missions including LRO
• Fully funds: Juno, GRAIL, MSL, LADEE, and MAVEN
• Develops Advanced Sterling Radioactive Generators for 2014-2015 launch readiness
• Continues funding for Europa Jupiter mission

5:54pm Congress upset that NASA keeps money unspent to long. It turns out that while grants are 5% of NASA expenditures, 50% of these expenditures are billed by universities months and months after work actually happened. (will need to check with my grants office…)

5:56 Upcoming highlights:

• Nov 4, 10 EPOXI  at HArtley 2
• Mar 18, 11 MESSENGER orbit insertion
• July Juno launch Oct MSL Launch
• Aug 2012 MSL Lands on Mars

5:59pm Dr Laurie Leshin, Deputy Associate administrator, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate now on podium

6:00pm You are here now: NASA has 4 directorates ARMD (Aeronautics Research), SMD (science), SOMD (Space Operations), ESMD (Explorations Systems. This talk focuses on ESMD

6:01pm The Presidents FY 2011 Budget Request takes a new approach to goals – “focusing on capabilities that will allow us to reach multiple destinations including the Moon, Asteroids, Lagrange points, and more.”

6:03pm “PResident’s Budget challenges NASA to embark on a new human space exploration program that invests near term in obtaining key knowledge about future destinations and demonstrating critical enabling technologis for human space flight and exploration” It requires NASA to show tech works, show returns are worth it, and then build tech for people.

6:06pm New efforts to expand links to commercial space flight are a different way to same manned-spaceflight goal. Yes, Constellation is cancelled, but that is not the end of manned spaceflight. Just the end of a program. The people behind Constellation made the best of an underfunded situation; the worked hard and did well with what they had. But Obama wants to take a different path.

6:10pm Just as NASA helped facilitate development of commercial cargo rockets (Go SpaceX – your Falcon 9 is pictured), NASA will now help commercial space craft get crew (=people) to ISS. Commercial groups build, NASA procures.

6:11pm by investing in new technology (and demonstrating new technology) we can bring down costs/masses/worry concerned with future missions. This is tied in Flagship Technology Demonstrations. “Mars destination is a driving case for high leverage demonstration and technology”

6:16pm Exploration Precursor Robotic Missions “rovide venue for flight validation” While Mars is a goal, practicing on the Moon is in the “slides”. Partnerships span gov’t+commercial+international – everyone welcome

6:18pm While LRO + LCROSS had no followup projects in old budget, the new budget allows this. These missions proved that precursor missions are needed in so many ways. The example shown is how LRO’s CRaTER (cosmic ray detector) demonstrated that the Moon reflects Galactic Cosmic Rays – a form of radiation we’ll need to account for when humans land

6:24pm Asked about termination costs of Constellation. These are still being determined. So far $9B spent, but cost to actually get to Moon was going to be much much more.

6:35pm Several people asking questions that point out that we’ve gone from NASA having a series of very specific goals and very specific timelines to general goals and no timelines. There is concern and a desire for specificity. Leshin asks for patience. Honestly, I’m ok with NASA hitting the reset button and starting from scratch to define their future in a way we will believe

July 8, 2009 Image of Charlie Bolden (credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA)

Charlie Bolden is giving the NASA Policy talk today. The last several of these that I’ve heard (excepting when Alan Stern spoke) have left me angry or discouraged. Griffin was not an astronomers’ NASA director. But it’s a new day and a new administration, and just 30 seconds into Charlie’s talk I can tell I’m going to leave with faith in his ability to communicate to my community and to support our dreams.

[Note: Bad Astronomer Phil Plait as coverage as well. Check it out?]

NASA Director Charlie Bolden is a grandfather (he talks about his grand kids all the time), an astronaut, a communicator who brings laughter, and a person willing to admit with humility that he’s not the smartest person in the room, and to admit with pride that he likes working with all the smart  -icists in the room.

As he speaks, he is looking forward to a great year of new launches and new science. He remembers the 1990’s discussions of how Hubble would change our understanding of the world we live in as it brings us understanding of the Big Bang and so much more (which it did). We live another new era of discovery.

• Kepler is finding planets (5 announced yesterday).
• Last month WISE was launched and it will bring a deeper, higher resolution survey of the sky in the Infrared. The mission is launched, the cover is off, and tomorrow we get to see the first images and see if it is in focus (Charlie points out each mission has three hurdles: Does it launch? Does it get first light? Is it in focus? Remember why we worry about that third one?)
• There is also SOFIA, which was resurrected from the desert and is now flying, door open, on the verge of having the telescope installed
• Fermi has revealed whole new classes of pulsars
• Spitzer found the largest ring around Saturn, and
• A combination of images from many of the great observatories has found the  the most distant clusters.

And then there was Hubble. Director Bolden was part of the Hubble in its first days, and as he brought up this most recent mission he teared up. He is telling us stories of his own work, and telling us of their struggles getting Hubble out of the cargo bay. These are stories I’ve never heard. The arm struggled with its weight and they had to read numbers off this that and the other things as they exceeding limits in unexpected ways. And it got worse. As Hubble was deployed, one of the Solar Panels got stuck and didn’t deploy. To protect the Hubble, hanging as it was on the robotic arm, they stopped stabilizing the shuttle (that would have put torque on the whole system as it got yanked around). Left to their own dynamics, the Shuttle and Hubble tumbled together as they orbited around the planet, with the whole team working to find a solution (It was found – there was a piece of software designed to make sure the solar panels didn’t get torqued too much. They disabled it and the Solar Panel deployed right away. It worked. It all worked. And he was part of that magical moment when Hubble floated away to take on the universe.

Transitioning  form his emotionally spoken story – his voice cracking more than once – back to policy, he declared the importance of partnering internationally, treating our partners as equals and with respect, and of building strong international collaborations.

He carries with him the message that during the White House Star Party, a cold clear night in D.C., President Obama and his wife and daughters spent nearly 45 minutes going from telescope to telescope. They were engaged, absorbing with interest the views through telescopes while hearing about the discoveries of high school astronomers – discovers of rare neutron stars, supernovae, and more, each student having their own science discovery behind their name . The Obama’s have their own interest in astronomy, and they value the importance of space and space education.

The White House Star Party is an example of one of the things we do right: Engaging people intellectually and passionately in astronomy observing and content.

He challenges us to go forth and communicate our work: Educating and sharing our results to increase understanding and passion for astronomy.

There is more coming: More launches of more missions.

And the Decadal Survey reports are forth coming and will be used to shape our future, making sure that NASA addresses with its missions the most compelling science of our time. And to succeed in these missions we need to create an educated work force ready to dream these missions, build these missions, and generate the science from these missions’ data.

To make this future real we need to both educate and do science while always always inspiring.

Closing his talk, Bolden gave us these words: “The future of manned space flight will not be paid for out of the hide of science. … Let’s embrace our future together.” He states that together we and are international partners will work on great things and do science while we educate a future generation. This is a partnership, and we will inspire together.

And now we are into questions… (Paraphrasing as close to quotes as I can)

Q: Will you be teaching anything?
A: I won’t enter the teaching profession on a formal basis, but I’m privledged to travel and communicate to people and through that get communicate in my own small way

Q: Will be have a manned space flieght before 2020
A: Yes. This will not be the president who precedes over the end of manned space flight. … We have incredible partners in terms of technology. [HUGE PARAPHRASE] The Japanese have the incredible HTV. We’re asking if they can work to make it capable of returning things to earth

Quote: I recently had a surgery with robots in my body – It was incredible! But I wouldn’t want to turn those robots loose!

If you had told me we would not be on the surface of the Moon today, I would have told you were smoking dope. We became risk adverse have Challenger. We have got to become willing to take risks.

Quotish: If you’d told me when I was training to be an astronaught that we would not be on the surface of the Moon today, I would have told you , you were smoking dope. Let me say that again: If you’d told me we wouldn’t be back on the moon today I would have told you that you were smoking some bad dope. I thought I was going up on the Shuttle and coming back to train to go to the moon.

We became risk adverse after the Space Shuttle Challenger. That has got to stop. We’re going to drop satellites into the ocean periodically. Human mistakes are going to happen. We don’t want to plan for this. We want to work to avoid this. But we can’t be afraid. We need to take risks to move forward.

…

We’re open to comment and to criticism. We’re not going to do things the way we used to do.

…

Audience Comment: I’m concerned about the emphasis on international collaboration. That seems to imply large missions. What about small missions?

A: (Summary of long response) International Collaboration doesn’t imply large missions. It implies opening doors for other countries by helping them doing things they can’t do on their own. Consider scientists in Nigeria who are working with researchers at the University of Alabama on small research missions. It is our duty to share what we can do.

My Words: I don’t think everyone can educate face to face, but I think all of us have something to give, and that as a community, if we create a culture of collaboration, of partner globally, and of working to find ways to decimate our results and value the communicators as highly as we value our top researchers we can create a new generation of people who understand science and understand how to love science.

I’ll be writing more on this later. Right now, all I know is I’ve seen a great speaker speak from the heart about my dreams and how we can work together to make them real. I’m in love, but, as Phil put it, this really was only a first date.

I want to believe.

Launch of STS-129 (from Sci-Fi Laura)

It feels like a lifetime has passed since the Shuttle Launch, but I need to finish telling that story before I can move onto something new. That November the shuttle Atlantis launched flawlessly.

It is all a mosaic of moments: the shuttle astronauts drove past and waved; we all piled out for a group picture; speakers came and went and media came and went and we listened and we didn’t and we were interviewed and we laughed. I paused in the middle to record Astronomy Cast – a 10 minute bit for 365 Days of Astronomy actually – and I paused in the middle to work on a grant. There is no escape from real life even when you stand at the edge of the looking glass.

At about 2:15pm we went out and staked out our places in the grass. We fussed with cameras and we laughed and we got lost in the sun, and the clouds, and the water, and we got lost in the moment.

And then we heard “We have Main Engine Ignition. 6! 5! 4! …”

We’d been sitting, Laura, Mark and I, in the grass in front of the tripods, in front of the crowds, in front of the clock. Nothing was between us and the Shuttle except water and wood. We missed the start of the count down to the noise of the crowd, and as we looked up from our cameras and iPhones, we saw the clouds of steam starting to billow up.

The countdown was counting down, and we screamed out with the NASA announcer, one voice blended from so many.

“3! 2! 1! We have launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis”

There was more he said, but we were lost; Mark and I were lost in our binoculars, and Laura watched and fliked photos with her amazing camera. Through my Nikons, the flames caused pain and I had to look away, but I could only take the lenses away for a moment because I wanted to see everything. We traced the Shuttle’s path skyward, watching it pivot belly up to the sky. It climbed, and through the eyepieces I saw the solid rocket boosters drop away as the Shuttle disappeared into the clouds.

And then it was over, the wind whiping away the clouds created by the engines’ combustion. It was over, and it was another day. But it was a day we’d seen the Shuttle launch.

We had seen something special as we watched those men launch themselves into space. The image is burned into my retinas and rumbled into my chest, not to be forgotten.The world moved on, and we moved on with it, but we were changed.

@MarkSands and I in front of Countdown Clock

We’re here. We’re actually here.

It is launch day for STS-129, the next to last launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. We settled into our seats at T-3 hours and holding, waiting for the crew to head out the vehicle and load up and get locked in (a new meaning for load & lock?)

It is a fair day here in Cape Canaveral, with partial clouds, 4-5 ft seas, and low wind. Chances of launch are currently 70%, but in this room of 101 people from 21 US states, and 4 additional nations (Morocco, New Zealand, UK, and Canada), we are going to keep on believing this-is-happening-right-now until someone makes us stop.

As a little girl, one of my earliest memories is watching the shuttle contrails from landings at Edwards Air Force base. From our California home, we could just make out this white dot in the sky, and I remember running back and force from the TV, where chase jet images showed the shuttle in detail, and the backyard, where I could only imagine what it was so high up in the sky.

Now, an adult who set aside my dreams of being part of NASA HSF (Human Space Flight) to instead focus on my NASA SMD (Space Mission Directorate) reality, it is amazing to still find my way to a launch, and to find myself so close – able to reach out and touch the launch clock. It is an odd way to bookend a life. I was 7-years old when Columbia first flew, and if the last launch goes as planned in September 2010, I’ll be 36 when the program ends.

A lifetime of dreaming of flying on the wings of great white bird must replaced with a reformulation of my parents and grandparents more encapsulated dreams. With Constellation, the next generation of astronauts – my generation turned astronaut – will buckle back in to capsules.

But while Constellation moves NASA in a new direction, the commercial space program is continuing to imagine new things never thought of in the days of Glenn and Aldrain. With SpaceShipTwo and Virgin Galactic, we’re looking at new ways fly white winged birds into the inky black of space.

We are at T minus less than 3 hours and counting. There are two more holds. And there are 101 hearts willing away the clouds and wishing for clear check lists and smooth skies.

We are at T minus less than 3 hours and counting, and if all goes well in 3 real hours we’ll be watching Space Shuttle Atlantis launch into a clear blue sky.

STS-129 Tweetup

It’s morning and none of us have had enough coffee, but the approximately 100 of us in a conference room in the Rocket part are wide awake. Jon Cowart, Ares 1X deputy mission director, is currently going from table to table asking us to identify mystery items in a run morning mixer.

Earlier this morning (which at 8:18am is a scary concept), after checking in and getting badges and goody bags (and taking the goody bags back to the car), we all invaded a large conference room that NASA has tricked out in perfect fashion for a room full of New Media Addicts. Ahead of time they had sent us the SSID and password for the private network. They set up a power strip on each table (with more outlets than chairs per table!). On the screens, they’re displaying the live feed (using the very cool http://www.twitterfall.com) of the #NASAtweetup tag, and slowly we’re trending and we can watch it and the speaker all at once while creating content on our own computers and phones. They got us all the little stuff we needed. And that really does matter. Thanks NASA (and remember – this was all done as a volunteer effort on top of normal job responsibilities. When I say thanks, I mean it!)

Tweetup Geekery

As we came in and plugged in, NASA folks walked around leaving random mission bits on every table. Our table has external tank foam (woohoo? Maybe, woohoo? Ok, not so much. It’s foam). Other tables have hydrazine sensors, compressor valves, aerogel, mysterious chunky substances, what look like vibration dampeners, and all sorts of wonderful random stuff which encouraged us to get out of our nice safe seats, and get out from behind our nice safe keyboards, and to wander around looking at the weird and wonderful bits on other tables.

And, they got the day going by talking about these random items, and using them to transition into a discussion by John Cowart (@Rocky_Sci) STS assembly, moving the Shuttle to the pad, and the moments leading up to the launch of the shuttle.

A lot of what was said is the standard schpell that anyone can read, but he peppered his story with pieces that aren’t usually mentioned and that center around Kennedy Space Center being a nature giant nature preserve. There are nests of Bald Eagles (I think he said 5 nests). Roughly 1/3 of Florida’s manatees live here at Kennedy. There are 4000-6000 alligators scattered around the facility (and I really want to see one). This last bit I had actually known because I went to Space Camp / Space Academy in high school, and back in the late 80′s / early 90s, the end of the simulation showed an alligator on the run way. In real life, NASA has a crew responsible for clearing the runway of sunning reptiles.

There are many weird jobs at NASA: There is the guy who drives the porta potty behind the crawler to the launch pad, their are gator wranglers, and for today at least their are twitter herders.

From @Rocky_Sci, the podium was handed over to Wayne Hale (strategic program planning manager), who explained a lot of the technical details in analogies suited for non-technical types. One thing that seriously surprised me is how this is clearly a room full of people who live online, but who aren’t in careers related to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Wayne had us do a quick show of hands – “Who works in…?” and my guess is less than 30% of the hands went up.

It was evidence that today’s world requires everyone to be techno literate.

From Wayne we transitioned to Mike Massimino (@Astro_Mike). It is all going to fast to type, so I’m going to sit back and enjoy.

And soon they’re releasing us to go play… (Join me on twitter @starstryder for picts in real time).

Kennedy Space Flight Center

A few weeks ago one of my students pointed out, OMG THE NASA TWEETUP PAGE WENT UP EARLY! While most of us in the room had alarms set off to go off at noon to register for this special event, it wasn’t yet noon, and in a rush of adrenaline and typing we went to the sign in page and used are various autocomplete software to fill out the sign up page as soon as possible. We were all chasing one thing: The chance to attend one of the last 6 scheduled space shuttle launches.

Now, I have to admit, I signed up without checking the launch date, without checking the cost of going, without checking with my husband (my poor husband). I just registered on instinct.

And now I’m here, sitting in a Holiday Inn, waiting to attend a special 2-day event NASA is hosting for folks who interact with NASA via twitter.

Originally, a whole group of us were selected for what was supposed to be a Sunday launch, but with a one day delay and exam season upon, in the end it turned out only Mark Sands and I could come. And I have to give massive Kudos (with a capital K) to the dean of engineering at SIUE for funding all of Mark’s trip. As some of you may have seen, our university (along with all other Illinois state schools) is experiencing a massive funding crisis. With all accounts frozen, approval for this trip had to come from the vice chancellor, and the chair of computer science and dean of engineering went to bat for us to make this happen.

We left Edwardsville this morning on separate flights (just how we kept costs down, oddly) and I spent my day flying (and working on grant – bleh) and then driving with Mark out to the Cape. We reached Cape Canaveral just as sunset hit on a glorious Florida fall day. It was an odd and wonderful experience.

Evacuate through the KSC?

Flamingos fly in Formation

Did you know the hurricane evacuation route goes past the visitor center?

And did you know Flamingoes fly in V shaped formations?

These were just two of the things I learned today.

Tomorrow I expect to learn more substantial information. The mission we are here to see lift off, STS-129, is the next to last flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. This is a bit stressful in the same way that starting a really long car ride 5000 miles after you should have had your oil changed is stressful. The Atlantis was due several years ago for a complete overhaul, and was scheduled to be pulled from service pulled from service in 2008. It’s now 2009 and the shuttle should get them there and back again, but it is showing its age. Specifically, the Composite Overwrap Pressure Vesselswere designed to last 10 years, recertified after the fact as good for 20 years, but have actually been in service for 22 years and there is concern they may randomly opt to leak or explode while under full pressure (see this Space.com story). Just like I have successfully driven the 5 hours to and from Chicago in a 10 year old car well past due for an oil change and been fine, I fully expect everything to go great this weekend, and I suspect that NASA will tell us about how they have learned to retrofit the shuttles and redesign around these age issues.

I also expect to learn more about the missions goals. This is one of the rare construction missions that also carries science. One of the experiments it is carrying, MISSE, will be exposing a bunch of different “building” materials to the rigors of space – UV radiation, cosmic radiation, x-rays, extremes of temperature, etc, etc – to see what of today’s new materials are best suited to construct tomorrow’s space vehicles and bases.

Also carried up are spare parts (otherwise known as ExPRESS Logistics Carriers 1 & 2), and two communications systems (S-Band Antenna Sub-Assembly (SASA) package and COTS UHF communication unit). The later of these two will be needed when SpaceX takes over carrying US supplies to the ISS after the shuttle retires.

For now though, it’s off to bed.

More to come from Kennedy Space Center.

Many Faces of NASA

It is with great hope that I blog this town hall meeting. Tonight the new EP/O Lead for NASA, Steph Stockman (geosteph on twitter), is presenting NASA Education and the new vision for NASA’s new future under Charles Bolden.

As some of you know, for the past several years I have one conference after another blogged with a certain degree of bitterness the mistreatment of education and astronomy at the hands of Michael Griffin. I’ve reported name calling and budget slashing. I’ve even watched graduate students tell him “You’ve budget slashed my dreams into oblivion” to have him respond with more name calling. It has been ugly.

But there is hope! Bolden respects teachers! (His parents I think were teachers.) And the new EP/O director is savvy to new media, literate in K-12 educational theory, practiced in informal ed and generally is an educational triple-treat. These are good things!

Anyway – Steph is talking She is starting her talk by explaining why we see NASA doing the things it does – the changes in vision, the changes in reporting, the random NASA stuff we all have to track. She is giving us transparency in government one annoying reality at a time – but it’s better to be annoyed by reality then by mysteries.

The new Space Mission Directorate Outcomes will include 10 areas of effort (slid flew by too fast to grab what those 10 areas are) that will address 4 areas of education (higher ed, K-12, informal ed, and outreach). Within this context, outreach is seen as something that directly connects many aspects of NASA public affairs with formal education. (Outreach is what I do.)

Funding will come out through a variety of projects, ranging from mission-based EPO (Like the Little SDO videos), major activities (this is what we’re doing with Galaxy Zoo), and even supplements to science grants (Got science? I’d love to talk to you about ed!)

Bringing us all together are a set of NASA education forums under themes such as Astrophysics, Planetary Science, Helioscience, etc. (My grant straddles Planetary and Astrophysics.) The forums are a really cool thing – They foster collaborations, sharing of resources, and generally supply a support mechanism for those of us with NASA grants. For the past couple months I’ve attended the monthly Planetary Science telecon and learned about a lot of lunar projects I never knew about that I can plug into and about get help for an upcoming Moon related open-secret-project I can’t write about here.

NASA is also using working groups to help define what NASA can do to best support us through their products and activities. These working groups (~10 people each), will consist ~50% of people working on NASA EPO (SEPOF teams in NASA speak) and the other 50% will be outsiders (for instance people from government) who can bring in a fresh perspective. On the list I am happy to see a Web Presence and Social Media Working Group! As part of all of this, they are going to make a user friendly NASA Science Mission Directorate EP/O web-portal, and they are going to make it possible to find NASA educational products in a straight-forward way. One of the more controversial parts of this (but one I support) is they are going to put all NASA products through a review process to make sure they are good products that we really should be promoting. When this first gets implemented, all existing products that haven’t been reviewed will get yanked until everything can go through the review process.

Yeah for accountability!

And all of the sudden we’ve landed in Q&A.

Q: How do we marry Project 2061 and NASA products?
A: (This is a really bad paraphrase) With meta-data. This is part of the review process – we’re going to make sure what we produce is aligned with standards and fits within the vision.

Q: What about assessment?
A: Over the years, standards have changed. Summative; Summative + Formative; Just Fromative. Etc. In the future, an evaluation/assessment professional needs to come to NASA HQ to help understand proper assessment. In the future, anyone doing assessment will need to have approval for their survey / instrument.

Q: Does this mean you are now your own Institutional Review Board?
A: Yes & No. It’s unclear. … Look, currently everyone is kind of doing their own thing. Likard scales from 1-5, inverse, 1-10, and all sorts of things. We need to try and sort this out into something more consistent.

At this stage, the Q&A deteriorated into a discussion on what it will take to get all NASA products and websites 508 compliant. I’m going to stop here and just be happy for clarity and transparency and hope.