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On November 17th 2010, I was in Washington DC attending the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the International Academy of Astronautics (www.iaaweb.org), an event that thanks to the organizational skills of its secretary general Jean-Michel Contant, included the largest gathering of heads of Space Agencies ever witnessed. In fact, there were no fewer than thirty of them, including the president of the Brazilian Space Agency, Carlos Ganem. Each of them had just three minutes to speak and express their opinion about the direction of space science over the coming years.

The keyword of the day was unmistakably ‘COOPERATION’.

In brief speeches by representatives of the institutions that shape the Space dream of countries from around the world, no one failed to mention the ‘C’ word, with the idea of working together to achieve real progress being paramount, for the four issues under discussion: Human Space Flight, Planetary Robotic Exploration, Climate Change and Disaster Management.The Working Groups of these four areas, made up of members of the Academy of Astronautics, presented their report formulated over the last year, which summarizes the achievements attained in each sector and outlines plans for the coming decades. My particular professional area of interest, Human Space Flight, has a plan that is divided into three major phases:

Between 2010 and 2025, activities will focus on the utilization of the International Space Station by astronauts from various nations, as well as the installation of one or more low earth orbit laboratories (LEO - Low Earth Orbit). The period from 2020 to 2035 will be devoted to consolidation of LEO laboratories and robotic missions to different celestial bodies such as Mars and the Moon, in an attempt to provide the necessary support for future human missions, which will occur between 2030 and 2050.

By the time the meeting ended it was early evening. Although cold, the Washington day had been beautiful, with blue skies and no clouds. As always, the fall in the northern hemisphere has a special charm, as the leaves on the trees transform into an amazing display of brown, gold and reddish-yellow, resembling the hue of copper. I left there on that beautiful autumn day with the certainty that the world was united to surmount barriers and overcome scarcity of diverse resources, in favor of a higher value: life on Earth and beyond.


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These must be stressful times in the USA at the moment for those involved at all levels with NASA and the Space program. Times are hard, financial budgets have not increased as many would have wished, the shuttle program is coming to an end, and many employees will find themselves searching for new jobs next year. To add insult to injury, the latest shuttle launch is delayed until at least 17th December 2010, following the discovery of cracks in the foam surrounding the fuel tanks.

It would now appear that the development of the much needed ‘alternative commercially operated transportation’, something that NASA will be relying upon for future delivery of cargo to the International Space Station, may not be proceeding as quickly as had been hoped.

NASA boss Charles Bolden is reported to have said this week at the Marshall Space Flight Centre that:

"We are hoping to fly a third shuttle mission in June, what everybody calls the launch-on-need mission ... and that's really needed to [reduce] the risk for the development time for commercial cargo. If there's any delay in ... delivery of commercial capability to take cargo to station, we could find ourselves in a situation as bad as having to de-man the station or take it down to three people, and we really don't want to do that".

Difficult times ahead then! 

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ESA Astronaut Candidates
Basic training officially ended yesterday, 22nd November 2010, for the six newest astronaut candidates to be selected by the European Space Agency (ESA), with their graduation ceremony taking place in front of family, friends, guests and media, at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.

The rigorous training schedule included space & electrical engineering, other scientific disciplines and the major systems of the International Space Station (ISS) and space vehicles. Also included were scuba diving sessions as a preparation for spacewalks, robotics, survival training, rendezvous and docking, and the Russian language.

Selection of the astronauts began in 2008 when the process began of whittling down the 8,000 applications received, to fill just six available places. There followed a year long process of interviews and assessment to evaluate all aspects of suitability, including not only mental and physical aptitude, but importantly, the ability to work successfully as a member of a close-knit team.

Finally, in May 2009, the following six applicants were invited to join ESA’s astronaut group - Samantha Cristoforetti from Italy, Alexander Gerst from Germany, Andreas Mogensen from Denmark, Luca Parmitano from Italy, Timothy Peake from the UK and Thomas Pesquet from France.

The new astronauts will continue with their pre-assignment training, and will also be taking part in public relations activities. Once assigned to a mission, they will concentrate on specialist training for that mission. It is hoped that the first of the new astronauts will have the opportunity to fly to the International Space Station by 2013.

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Who needs billions of dollars, breathtaking layers of bureaucracy and an army of scientists and engineers, when a big dose of enthusiasm, some creative imagination, a bit of cash and three friends can do the job just as well?
 
Three British Space fans, Steve Daniels, John Oates and Lester Haines, put their heads together to come up with a cunning plan to send an aircraft into Space, and all for the modest sum of £8000.

The operation, codenamed PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space), involved the construction of a plane with a 3ft (91.4cm) wing span made from paper straws covered in paper, equipped with small camera and GPS navigation system, and launched by means of a large helium balloon.
 
Climbing up to 90,000ft (27,432m) in height before the balloon exploded, the plane then glided back down to earth again, taking photographs as it descended. The launch pad was a remote spot 80km west of Madrid and the plane eventually landed again, almost undamaged, in woodland about 160km away.
 
Three cheers and many congratulations to the ingenuity and passion of the three budding Space explorers.

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NASA Shuttle Discovery
Cape Canaveral in Florida this week proved to be a place where the ability to bide your time and remain patient was essential.

Monday 1st November 2010 was to see the final launch of the NASA space shuttle Discovery before it is decommissioned forever. However, what followed was a series of problems, helium and nitrogen gas leaks, an electrical problem with a circuit breaker, and bad weather, with the launch date being put back again and again. 

Finally, a hydrogen leak from an 18cm long crack in an external fuel tank discovered just hours before the launch brought the whole proceedings to a finish on Friday, with the latest problem likely to take at least 4 days to fix.

NASA has now set the next launch date for no earlier than November 30th, with the likelihood that Discovery will launch in the first week of December at some point – hopefully!

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