Atlantis lands. Source: NASA

Hello, and welcome.  Our theme this week is detente – as in the easing of hostilities between rivals. It is what we saw in space 35 years ago this week when Apollo and Soyuz joined together in low earth orbit – and it is what we are seeing unfold over the past few days in Washington – as Congress and the White House try to compromise on what is next for NASA after the shuttles are retired.  The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously  approved an authorization bill that embraces much of the white house space vision – with some key differences:   Under the Senate plan, NASA will launch Atlantis one more time next year…meaning there are three shuttle missions remaining.  NASA will begin work on a heavy lift rocket immediately – not in 2015 as Obama had promised.  As for the similarities: Ferrying cargo and astronauts to low Earth orbit will still fall to commercial companies, the ISS gets a lease extension to 2020, and there is more money earmarked for space and earth science and aeronautics.  The man leading the charge on this  Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. He bristled when reporters suggested the new plan mandates NASA do exactly what the Augustine Commission warned against: throwing out Constellation to start work on an underfunded new rocket.

What this does is set up a new heavy lift vehicle, on a deadline of December 31, 2016, and this is achievable because of the policy that has been set by the committee.  The committee cannot tell NASA how to design a rocket, but we can give policy direction to the executive branch of government, and we’ve done that in the bill.  Using shuttle derived technology, building on that, making it evolvable, not building the largest rocket around but starting in the range of 75 to 100 metric tons, that is evolvable, and that would be built over the course of those six years within a budget of 11 and a half billion dollars.  Now that is doable.  And if anybody tells you that it is not, then if I were you I’d question their particular agenda.

In the interest of detente – the White House released a statement – saying in part – the Senate bill  “represents an important first step towards helping us achieve the key goals the President has laid out…“We look forward to continuing to work with Congress to help advance an ambitious and achievable space program, one that helps us blaze a new trail of innovation and discovery.”

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Source: NASA

Thirty five years ago this week, they were blazing a whole new trail in space – when two space capsules – a Soviet Soyuz and an American Apollo rendezvoused and docked in low earth orbit. The Apollo Soyuz Test Project captured the attention of the world – as the two nuclear superpowers put their differences aside – and found they had much in common. This past week the surviving crew members came to New York City – to the OMEGA Watch Boutique on Fifth Avenue to celebrate the anniversary – hey what better place to mark a moment in time??
What they accomplished on their mission planted the seed for the international space station. U.S. Commander Tom Stafford flew with two rookies – one of whom was his boss – the late Deke Slayton – one of the original Mercury Seven – was grounded for years because of a heart murmur – but finally got a clean bill of health. Also on board Apollo:  Vance Brand – who later commanded three shuttle missions.  The Soviets were led by Alexey Leonov – the first person to walk in space. He flew with Valery Kubasov.  The three of them gathered for a panel talk in the OMEGA Boutique – yours truly served as moderator. Unfortunately Alexey Leonov was not feeling well – and could not join us.

Thanks to OMEGA for hosting that great event – as you probably know, the company has a long, rich history with human spaceflight.

In fact, there would not be an international space station without Apollo Soyuz – and while the Senate bill we told you about envisions another mission for Atlantis – until that happens the Endeavour sts-134 mission is still the last in line – and the external fuel tank that will power that shuttle to orbit arrived at the Kennedy Space Center a few days ago – after a safe voyage across the BP tainted gulf. The mission is set to fly at the end of February.

International Space Station. Source: NASA

STS-134 will deliver a comic ray detector called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station.  Engineers at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands are currently putting the AMS through some final testing – they released some new video this week.  When they wrap up, they’ll be packing it up for shipment to the Kennedy Space Center, and ultimately Endeavour’s payload bay.  AMS is designed to search the universe for dark matter and antimatter.  It will be the last big piece of science equipment that the shuttle will take to the ISS.

Another important milestone for those of you who would like to catch a brief ride to space…the Virgin Galactic’s  Enterprise – or Spaceship 2 – flew with a crew the other day – not to space mind you – she remained firmly attached to the belly of the mothership – Eve. Maybe next time the Branson and Rutan led team will cut the chord…and see how she glides.

the Japanese Space Agency, or JAXA – has been hard at it doing some cool things of late.   The solar sail experiment called IKAROS, launched in May, is accelerating through space as designed…pushed along by photons of light.  JAXA confirmed last month that the sail had unfurled, but held off on the high-fives until they could be sure that it is zipping along as planned.  The 680 pound spacecraft is more than 11 million miles from Earth, headed toward Venus.  And Japanese scientists have cracked open the Hayabusa sample return canister.  You remember Hayabusa – its the spacecraft designed to gather dust from an asteroid and return it to Earth for analysis.  Here it is streaking across the sky over the South Pacific en route to a parachute landing in the Australian Outback on June 13th.  The good news is there IS dust in there.  What still needs to be determined is the origin of the dust particles  - are they from asteroid Itokawa, or are the dust bunnies from Earth?  I guess that is why they have clean rooms. Wish my teenagers had them…

Speaking of clean rooms – the one at The Jet Propulsion Lab is a busy place these days. That is where they are assembling – the Mars Science Lab – known as Curiosity – it is spinning its wheels – and that’s a good thing.  These six aluminum wheels are bigger than car tires, and were just installed on the rover over the past few weeks.   Engineers are putting the wheels through their paces…testing each actuator, or motor, to make sure they are all functioning properly.  This rover will have six-wheel drive, and is designed to roll over large rocks and climb steep hills without tipping over.  Beats a hummer – and that radioactive battery power gives it great mileage. Launch is slated for late next year.

New pictures from the Solar Dynamics Observatory show the arcing magnetic loops of an active solar region in profile.  Pretty cool.  SDO captured these extreme ultraviolet images earlier this month, just as the loops where rotating into view.  These structures are linked with solar flares, and several small ones did erupt from this region.  Can’t wait to see what sort of arcs SDO will show us next time a major flare shoots off.

All that talk about solar flares reminded us about the Zombie Satellite – researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Lab say there is more evidence a solar storm fried ZombieSat –  more formally know as Intelsat’s Galaxy 15 – back on April 5th.  Instruments aboard NASA’s STEREO spacecraft indicate a coronal mass ejection associated with a moderate-size solar flare hit Earth just when Galaxy 15 went rouge.  ZombieSat is apparently drifting along on a stable and predictable path.  Though command and control has been lost, it’s still transmitting.  So while operators say a collision is unlikely, The Zombie could interfere with other birds – so don’t bang on your TV set – blame it on the Zombie…

Back now to that Apollo Soyuz Anniversary event at the OMEGA Boutique in New York City. All five members of that crew wore OMEGA Speedmaster professional watches – more commonly known as the moon watch. – like this one…
We are gratified that Omega is joining us a sponsoring us this week – and we thought you might like to hear the surprising origins of OMEGA’s ubiquitous presence in space:

Thanks for being with us – please tell your friends about us – have them watch us on Youtube or iTunes.  If you like our show, please consider tossing us a few bucks via Paypal at spaceflightnow.com/twis. And you can email us – twis@spacefligthnow.com or tweet us @thisweekinspace. Check out the blog version at milesobrien.com.
Thanks so much to our sponsor OMEGA. We really appreciate it.   Next time on “This Week In Space” – it’s our last episode of the season – but we’re not going anywhere and neither are THESE guys who are locked into a habitat for 520 days.  Say what you want about those Mars 500 guys, they are keeping it clean.  But in space, no one can hear you scrub.  Join us for that and more – we’ll see you then.

ET-138 rolls out at the Michoud Assemby Facility. Source: NASA

Hello and Welcome. We begin with a big orange caboose – if you will. The last space shuttle external fuel tank on the manifest made its way out of the barn at  Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The tank  is known affectionately as ET-138…but you can can call her “E” if you like. Tank builder Lockheed Martin pulled out all the stops for this one – hundreds of workers were on hand while a brass band played. The tank will ride on its custom barge to the Kennedy Space Center where it will be mated with Endeavour, now slated to fly the final shuttle mission N-E-T – or no earlier than – February 26th, 2011. Now there is one more tank that will be shipped from Michoud – it will be used by Atlantis should the Endeavour crew get in a jam – and need a lift home. And this is where I get to put in my plug for flying that tank – with Atlantis – one more time. Why not? And this is also where I get to nag you: if you have not seen a shuttle ride the fire to orbit – you are assigned to be at one of the last launches. No excuses. There will be a test later.

Tanks for the memories – I guess – prime shuttle contractor United Space Alliance announced its largest layoff to date –  15 percent of its workforce.  Most of those employees are in Florida – since that is where most of their employees live.  Somewhere between 800 to a thousand wrench turners and pad rats will be getting pink slips.   Another 400 or so will be sacked from other USA operations. More cuts, are expected of course as the program winds down.

And that would explain the turnout at recent job fairs at KSC – somewhere between 2 and three thousand shuttlers showed up to press the flesh and hand deliver some resumes. About 60 public and private sector employers showed up. Can you guess which company had the most popular booth? Why that would be a certain California based launch company called SpaceX.  Better SpaceX than ex-space I suppose.

If any of those jobless USAers are space history buffs – and I know there are more than a few you – you may want to consider this job: official NASA historian. apply at USAjobs.gov by the 13th. Also in the comings and goings department – NASA’s Wayne Hale is hanging up his headset but we hope not his keyboard – the veteran flight director, shuttle program manager – and eloquent blogger says its a personal decision. I sure hope he keeps sharing his pearls of wisdom with us. And the Hubble repairman just added another line to his long resume – John Grunsfeld is now a research professor at Johns Hopkins. he will keep his gig down the road as the number two man at the space telescope science institute – which is Hubble Science Central. Hey if he can’t multi task – who can?

Armadillo Aerospace

In spite of all this bad news – or I guess as a result of it – those wild eyed entrepreneurs who want to make a buck doing the Buck Rogers things are hard at work – and making some progress – check out a couple of cool test flights in recent weeks – this one comes from John Carmack’s Armadillo aerospace…here demonstrating his rocket can be shut down and restarted in flight – something solid rockets cannot do of course.  And at the Mojave Spaceport Masten Space Systems is also making progress on the on/off switch department – check out this recent test…Masten calls the vehicle Xombie…hmm, “Mojave, the Xombie has landed”…i guess that is why they call it NEW space…
All’s well that ends well up there on the International Space Station – but a Progress freighter docking was a real nail-biter last weekend. The Russian cargo ship launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on June 30 carrying more than two tons of equipment and supplies to the ISS.  But twenty five minutes before docking – Progress and the station stopped communicating with each other and the Progress flew past the station…it wasn’t a space spat – just some interference traced to a backup TV system used for manual docking.  So  on the 4th of July, the Russians declared independence from the TV – pulled the plug – and the docking went off without a hitch…well actually -with- a hitch – if ya know what i mean.

And check out the fireworks display courtesy of NASA’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory – and the medium sized star we call Sun. It send out these flares over a 40-hour period June 11 and 12.  Here’s another view captured in the immediate aftermath of a flare – check out those magnetic loops.  Solar flares are are linked to solar storms and so-called “coronal mass ejections” – they are  clouds of charged particles that erupt off the sun and wash out over the solar system.  When they hit Earth, they can disrupt telecommunications and power grids and really light up the auroras.

This next item comes to us courtesy of our friends at the Coalition for Space Exploration.  We all know about the Big Bang – massive explosion, 13 and a half billion years ago or so, kicked off our universe.  But it may surprise to you hear that “afterglow,” so to speak, of that event is still with us.  Check out the much-anticipated new picture from ESA’s Planck telescope showing the cosmic microwave background – think of it as the dying embers, if you will,  left over from the Big Bang.  But look closely.  In this image, the bright line across the center is actually our Milky Way galaxy.  Planck project scientist Jan Tauber steps us through the rest.

Well, on this picture, of the cosmic microwave background, is basically the reddish stuff that you see behind the galaxy.  Although the galaxy is beautiful, unfortunately it hides part of the cosmic microwave background from us, and you can see that very clearly here.  You can only see the cosmic microwave background in small parts of the sky.  But those bumps that you see, those grains between yellow and orange and red, that is in fact the signal that comes to us from the Big Bang.

Suffice it to say a comprehensive understanding of the Big Bang – and how the universe evolved from there – is one of the holy grails in all of science.  We’ll keep you posted on what cosmologists glean from this image, and others like it.  Probably won’t be next week.

Calling all Explorers!  The Coalition for Space Exploration is hosting an online contest called, “Explore Our Space,” where you can learn about exploration by visiting spacecoalition.com.  By participating, you can enter to win tickets to view the STS-133 launch at Kennedy Space Center or IMAX movie tickets.  And, you’ll receive a free, digital space-themed icon and wallpaper download.  Visit spacecoalition.com for details and rules to enter. While you’re at it, sign up for CSExtra – the Coalition’s daily collection of space news.

Asteroid Lutetia. Source: Rosetta

Rosetta meet Lutetia …Lutetia, Rosetta…the former is an asteroid – the latter a European Space Agency spacecraft.  The two were like ships in the void this weekend. And the pictures are phenomenal. They show Lutetia is heavily cratered – understandable for a 4 and a half billion year old rock. And check out this shot - that is Lutetia in the forgeground – in 60 meter resolution – and that object in the distance – Saturn….that shot’s a ringer.  At ESA mission control  the crowd went wild – well as wild as they get there.  Rosetta probe passed about 3000 kilometers from the rock – that’s just under 2000 miles for those of you who don’t like doing the math. I personally prefer “miles,” but that’s just me.  When I was in high school, my friends called me kilometers… or sometimes kilo – which often raised the suspicion of the teachers for some reason. But I digress – back to high altitudes… Lutetia orbits in the main asteroid belt, and is the largest asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft. Rosetta’s prime mission is to orbit and land on a comet in 2014, so this asteroid flyby was just a little lagniappe.

You know the more we look into space – the more we see asteroids out there in our cosmic neighborhood. Looking for the big ones and making sure they have not painted a bullseye on, say Cleveland…is an important mission. Or at least it should be – for years the scientists who study Near Earth Objects had to fight for funding – but Washington may finally be listening…and that is good news if you happen to be the man in charge of looking for big rocks that could really ruin our day. His name is Don Yeomans and I Skyped him at Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Lab.

That is all we wrote for this week…thanks for being with us – please tell your friends about us – have them watch us on Youtube or iTunes.  We sure would love some help from you. Check out our painless payment option at spaceflightnow.com/twis. Email us – twis@spacefligthnow.com or tweet us @thisweekinspace. Check out the blog version here.  Thanks so much to our sponsors Binary Space and the Coalition for Space Exploration.  We really appreciate it. Next time – time flies – we will celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Apollo Soyuz Test Project…we’ll talk to Tom Stafford and Alexi Leonov about that warm patch in the middle of the Cold War – and we’ll tell you which movie inspired the mission the real life mission…that’s on the next “This Week In Space”  – we’ll see you then.

Discovery launch. Source: NASA

Hello and Welcome. we begin this week with shuttle manifest destiny…and the movable feast that the last days of STS launching has become.   It now appears the next shuttle flight – Discovery flying the STS-133 mission –  will launch on October 29, and the STS-134 flight of Endeavour moves to February 28 of next year.   An official announcement is expected on July 1st.  The reason for the delay: scientists need some time to put the finishing touches on the final shuttle payload to the station – the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer,  a particle physics experiment. But we use the word final with some caution – as NASA has not ruled out an encore mission for Atlantis.  Look for a decision on that in August.

Of course there are a lot of people out there who would like to see the shuttles fly on…a new and familiar name is now on the list – Senator John Glenn – the first American to orbit the earth, a bonafide hero and a shuttle veteran as well – released a statement on Obama’s plans for NASA this week. He repeated what he has often said – that the shuttle should stay just a little bit longer…he does support keeping the station going past 2015 – and he agrees a moon base is not  in the cards now – as for the “smaller, less experienced companies” vying to fly cargo – and eventually people – to the space station should be said they should only be phased in only “after they demonstrate a high degree of competency and reliability, particularly with regard to safety concerns.”

In Hawthorne California – at SpaceX headquarters they would beg to differ – with all due respect to the Senator. It’s been a few weeks now since their successful first launch of their Falcon 9 rocket – and they are poring through the data – trying to better understand why they had a late in the count scrub before the launch, why the second stage rolled in orbit – and why they were unable to recover the first stage. Details on all of that and much more are in the full interview I had via Skype with SpaceX’s Ken Bowersox the other day.

Some fire and smoke from an Ariane 5 rocket. It blasted off from Guyana on Saturday. The payload – two satellites.  Arabsat-5A will provide telecom and broadband services to Africa and the Middle East.  The South Korean COMS satellite includes weather observation, ocean surveillance, and telecom payloads.  All eyes will be on Arianespace later this year as they begin launch operations using the Soyuz and new Vega rockets.

The Japanese Space Agency “JAXA” is on a roll these days.  We’ve shown you these pictures before, but we’ll show you again because they’re so cool – this is the Hayabusa sample return capsule streaking across the sky on June 13, returning dust samples from an asteroid. Now check out this – it’s a solar sail called Ikaros that launched last month. These pictures were taken after it unfurled on June 15 – when it was more than five million miles from Earth.  Solar sail lovers say they are a great propulsion technology. the idea: the sail will be pushed through the void by the sun’s light – specifically the photons. Ironically – solar sails do not rely on the solar wind – which is not as strong as the photons. Guess you could call it a new tack in space. We’ll keep you posted on how the space regatta is going.

If you want a good view of what is going on in the world of space – check out the the daily CSExtra – from the coalition for space exploration – which is where we saw this next story.

The Cassini spacecraft made its closest flyby ever past Saturn’s moon Titan last weekend –    skimming just 547 miles over Titan’s clouds –  looking for evidence of a possible magnetic field.  This was some fancy flying – the spacecraft actually dipped low enough to enter Titan’s atmosphere, which has a totally different aerodynamic environment than space.  This was Cassini’s 71st flyby of Titan.

And it was the first Cassini flyby brought to you by the CSExtra – To find out more about the Coalition for space exploration and to subscribe to the daily CSExtra, go their website.

A spectacular new image is out this week  from the Hubble Space Telescope of a fertile star forming region in a galaxy next door. This glowing bubble of gas in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud is called N11. It is nearly a thousand light years across.  Think of it as a stellar nursery – the sparkling diamond-like clusters are regions of energetic star formation.  Astronomers study these star clusters for clues as to how stars are born and develop.

Astronomers have detected a “superstorm” on an extrasolar planet.  The world in question is a so-called “hot Jupiter” planet about 150 light years away in the constellation Pegasus.  It orbits very close to its sun – and one side always faces inward and is scorching hot, and the other side outward  and is very cold.  The planet also has a thick carbon monoxide atmosphere.  Now we all know what happens on this planet when hot air meets cold – storms.  And that’s what they’re finding on that planet too, storms with winds up to 6,000 miles per hour. – That’s about Category 25 on the Saffir Simpson Scale I believe.

"Rachmaninoff" Crater on Mercury. Source: MESSENGER

And, here’s a little news about the planet Mercury, the International Astronomical Union has approved a name for this double-ringed basin, imaged by the MESSENGER spacecraft.  It’s “Rachmaninoff.”  The IAU names craters on Mercury after deceased artists, musicians, painters and authors.

How’s this to make a Mom proud?  Seventh graders at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, California have found a never-before-seen cave on Mars.  As part of the Mars Student Imaging Project offered by NASA and Arizona State, the kids directed the Mars Odyssey orbiter to take some snaps of a Martian volcano called “Pavonis Mons.”    Similar features have been seen elsewhere on the red planet, but never on this volcano. Next up:  the students have submitted the site as a candidate for imaging by the super-high rez HiRISE camera on the Mars Recon Orbiter.  With a resolution of about a foot per pixel, HiRISE could could potentially see down inside the cave. Their teacher Dennis Mitchell gets an “attaboy” as well.

And finally, let’s check in with our Mars 500 friends.   That’s three Russians, two Europeans and one Chinese guy who are sealed up inside a mock spacecraft in Moscow on a simulated mission to Mars.  The idea is to mimic as closely as possible the conditions of a real interplanetary mission – they are taking or growing all their own food, outside communication is limited and patchy, et cetera, et cetera.  Does this sound like kind of a spacey version of that whole Biosphere 2 thing to you?  It does to me.  Anyway.  They’ll be filing regular video diaries during their mission.  For the record, the facility consists of four interconnected modules and a fifth external module that will simulate the Martian surface once they, uh, get there.  Total volume of their living space:  550 cubic meters.  The mission will run for 520 days and conclude November 5, 2011.  It will be interesting to see if the crew is still jazzed about doing these video diaries come, say, next August.  It might get old soon.  A lot of things might get old soon.  We’ll check in with them from time to time to see how “deep space” is treating them. And we’ll make sure they don’t order up a pizza delivery..

Falcon 9 Launch. Source: Chris Thompson/SpaceX

Hello and Welcome – I had a long interesting talk with the president of the Constellation Nation – ex officio – Mike Griffin. I asked him what he things about the success of Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 test launch – you may be surprised at his response – I also asked him about the latest skirmish in the war between old and new space.  The full answer – and much more – coming up after we check the rest of the weeks space news.

Let’s get started with some fire and smoke – at the Baikonur Cosmodrome – that’s the site and sound of the 24th Space Station crew leaving earth behind for a long stint at the orbiting outpost. On board the Soyuz Capsule – Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronauts Shannon Walker and Doug Wheelock. Their arrival at the space station went well – the crew up there had an inkling they might be dropping by – so they dressed up in their fresh jumpsuits – and didn’t say they gave at the office their new station mates knocked on the door.  The arrival of Shannon Walker marks a minor milestone in space for those of you who keep track of the stats. For the first time ever – two women are a part of the long duration crew at the same time. Right now there is no room at the ISS inn – 6 station keepers are up there…working in the coolest science lab anywhere.

Among the experiments on the schedule — A new way to take a look at the world’s shipping traffic. The ESA-sponsored experiment is using the ISS to track ships from space.  All big ships are required to have on-board transponders, but the equipment really only works when the ship is close to shore.

The VHF radio signals that power the system have a horizontal range of just 40 nautical miles – so open ocean traffic is largely un-tracked.   But, as it turns out, the vertical range of those radio waves is much greater…all the way up the space station.  The experiment runs on remote control and will last for two years.

In the meantime, another NASA eye-in-the-sky is also keeping tabs on ships.  The MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites captured these views of what you might think of as ship “contrails.”  It turns out the sulphur in a ship’s exhaust interacts with the water vapor over the ocean to form these bright streamers.  They wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye, but MODIS can sniff them out.

Source: NASA

Water, water everywhere.  let’s move now from the surface of the earth to the interior of the moon.  A new report suggests there could be more water in minerals deep within the moon than is in all of the Great Lakes.  Scientists reached their conclusions after taking a fresh look at minerals inside two Apollo rock samples and a lunar meteorite.  They also think that water was present when the moon formed four and a half billion years ago.  The current thinking – a massive object impacted earth, kicking debris into orbit that eventually glommed together.

Wonder if that big object – was, say, Mars? speaking of the red Planet – more evidence it was once warm and wet there – a new study concludes that a vast ocean covered one-third of the planet’s surface three and a half  billion years.  University of Colorado-Boulder scientists combined topographical data with features on the Martian surface such as river valleys and river delta deposits to determine to the shape of the shoreline.  They think Mars once had a water-cycle much like Earth’s, with lots of rain.  The big question – what changed on the fourth rock? Why did it become so cold and dry? talk about climate change…

The crew of the Mars 500 mission did not pack any rain gear for its 17 month simulated journey to the Red Planet and back. The six person crew from Europe, Russia and China is now a few weeks into their voyage to nowhere inside a human sized hamster habitat in Moscow. They are simulating a real mission to Mars as much as possible – limited comm – limited food and limited space.  The crew will arrive on “Mars” in early February – spend a month – er – there – and return home in November of next year. Man this coulda been a great reality show –  makes that Big Brother program look pretty wimpy, doesn’t it?

And here is my favorite story of the week. NASA’s Kepler Telescope is finding a a lot of needles in the cosmic haystack out there… After a 43 day gander at a little more than 150 thousand stars, Kepler found evidence about 700 of them likely have extrasolar planets in orbit around them. The team is doing follow up observations on 400 of those stars using the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes.  Kepler scans for extra-solar planets by observing subtle variations in a star’s brightness.  If it dims, even ever-so-slightly, that could be evidence of an orbiting planet.  All of the 461 known extra-solar planets are much bigger than Earth. And its still unknown if any of these newly identified stars might be host to an Earth-sized world. But let’s not forget 15 years ago, the number of known extra solar planets – was zero. If scientists find a pale blue dot – we promise you will hear it here first…well that might be one space story the mainstream media might care about. Good thing they have well trained specialists on the science and technology beat…oh…well…just keep watching us.

You may wonder how we stay abreast of space news – one of our favorite sources is the CSExtra – - which sponsored this story  - CSExtra is a daily collection of the top headlines impacting the space industry, compiled by the Coalition for Space Exploration.

Each class of astronauts gives itself a nickname in recent years we have had:  The Gaffers, The Hairballs, The Hogs, The Sardines, The Penguins, The Bugs, The Peacocks, and The Flying Escargot  (The Flying Escargot???? Those wacky astronauts…).  So what to call the the newest members of the white scarf club?  Members of the 2009 Astronaut Class – “astronauts candidates” or “ascans” as they are unaffectionately called  – toured  the Kennedy Space Center this week.   Training officially begins in August at the Johnson Space Center.  So what to name them? How about The Dodos? I’ll let you figure out my rationale…

Whatever you my say about Elon Musk, he is no dodo – and he is learning once again nothing succeeds like success.  Fresh behind the plume of his successful Falcon 9 launch –  his company SpaceX inked a half billion dollar deal to launch Iridium communications satellites.  SpaceX will launch the lion’s share of 72 satellites, all between 2015 – 2017.  It’s unclear how many Falcon 9 launches will be needed to put all of them up there – one rocket can carry multiple satellites to space.  For those of you who wonder why would Iridium be launching so many more birds – after all they hit chapter 11 only 9 months after their ballyhooed debut in 1998…they have lived on serving a niche market – with some big guaranteed government contracts – and some  commercial subscribers who need instant communication in remote places. Interesting – a mix of government and private sector customers – no wonder Iridium likes SpaceX.

But of course for much of the old space guard – SpaceX is a six letter word for stupid…oh yeah…I guess that is a 6 letter word…in any case…the increasingly stupid sounding debate over what to do in space after the shuttles are gone took a turn deep into the weeds of the grassy knoll this past week. The concept you need to become familiar with is “termination liability.” It is, in essence a rainy day fund that NASA routinely inserts into contracts with the companies it uses to build spacecraft and rockets. It requires those companies to set aside money to wind down a program should it be cancelled.  Well NASA told the Constellation contractors ATK and Lockheed Martin to put a billion aside for termination liability – per the terms of the contract. This could be the nail in the coffin for Constellation. I asked the unofficial head of the Constellation Nation – former NASA administrator Mike Griffin about this in a skype the other day.

Hayabusa. Source: JAXA

It was a nail biter – sample return missions always are – but in the end JAXA pulled it out and the troubled Japanese “Hayabusa” mission to land on an asteroid and collect a sample ended on a high note.  A small capsule containing dust from the asteroid Itokawa touched down Sunday under parachute at the Woomera test range in the Australian Outback.  Launched in May 2003, Hayabusa suffered a host of technical problems and malfunctions, but in the end came home.  For those of you keeping score, NASA is 1 for 1 on sample return missions in recent years.  The Genesis spacecraft, which returned a sample of the solar wind to Earth for analysis, cratered in the desert of Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground back in 2004 when its drogue parachute failed to deploy.  Some of the sample return payload survived the crash, though.  On a happier note, the Stardust spacecraft successfully returned a dust sample from the tail of the comet Wild 2 in 2006…also to the Dugway Proving Ground.   And to answer your final question – yes, I know what it is –  “Hayabusa” means “Peregrin Falcon.”

While the Japanese were celebrating, the South Koreans – well, no so much. They “had a bad day” on Thursday as they say in the rocket business.  A Russian-built Naro-1 rocket launched from the Naro Space Center and all appeared fine at first, but mission controllers lost contact with it 137 seconds into flight.  Korean news reports indicated it exploded and crashed.  This is the second failure in two tries for the Koreans, who are attempting to establish a toehold in the satellite launch club.  Currently, eight countries and Europe have established launch capability.

And, before we leave the Pacific Rim…What was that glowing spiral in the sky over Australia last Saturday morning?  Could it be ALIENS?  Well, as it turns out, no.  It was actually Falcon 9.  Despite the spate of UFO reports that were phoned in to TV stations around Australia, SpaceX founder Elon Musk told our friends at Space.com that folks were actually seeing Falcon 9 venting propellants after it rocketed to orbit.  The sun caught the event at just the right angle to put on a show for the Aussies.

Thousands of contractor employees who work on the Constellation program have known the pink slips were coming ever since the Obama Administration announced plans to cancel the moon-shot project in February –  but now it looks like they may be hitting the unemployment line earlier than they thought.  NASA has told big contractors Lockheed Martin and ATK to come up with the money  to cover the costs of bringing Constellation to an end, even though Congress has not signed off of the cancellation yet.  It seems Lockmart and ATK are contractually required to pay those termination costs…which will total about a billion dollars.  Now those companies will likely have to lay off workers to pull that money together.  Expect this latest development to further poison the already nasty debate going on between the Administration, NASA and Congress over the future of the manned spaceflight program.  We’ll have more on this for you in next week’s show.

Atlantis lands. Source: NASA

Speaking of programs that are ending…the shuttle program is winding down, but don’t go thinking you’ve seen it all, been there, done that.  NASA has released new  video…from inside Atlantis…shot May 26th at the Kennedy Space Center right after the orbiter returned from 12 days in space.  This is the first time NASA has ever released video from the inside an orbiter during this crucial time.  Those are workers from prime shuttle contractor United Space Alliance there in the the crew compartment, ploughing through a long checklist to prep the spacecraft for tow-back to its hanger.  As  you well know, there are just two more shuttle missions left on the manifest – and NASA has cranked  up a fun public outreach program to get folks involved.  Send your Face to Space.  You can upload a picture of yourself and they will fly your mug on one of the final missions.

Members of the ISS Expedition 23 crew are back on terra firma. Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi and TJ Creamer parachuted to a landing on the steppes of Kazhakstan in a Russian Soyuz capsule last week.  We’ve all gotten used to spectacular landing pix compliments of NASA lensman Bill Ingalls.  But now NASA and the Russian Space Agency have released a never-before-seen view from a camera attached to an all-terrain vehicle that was part of the Russian Search and Recovery Forces team.  In the end, all was well with the Expedition 23 guys.  Expedition 24 crew members are set to blast off to the ISS next week.  Check in with us at Spaceflight Now for all the up-to-the-minute status reports.

The Mars rover Spirit may have fallen on some hard times recently…she’s stuck in the sand and in hibernation mode during the Martian winter.  But she made some news this past week.  Scientists have been pouring over data collected by Spirit back in 2005, and have identified high concentrations of a the mineral magnesium iron carbonate in a rock outcropping called “Comanche.”  That, in turn, suggests Mars may have once harbored a wet, non-acidic environment that could have been favorable for life.  Principal Investigator Steve Squyres is hailing the finding as one of the most significant ever Spirit or Opportunity.

Could there be methane-based life on Saturn’s moon Titan?  Before anyone gets carried away, let’s be really clear:  scientists don’t know, and the consensus is “probably not.”  But, new data published this week from the Cassini Spacecraft suggests some interesting chemical interactions happening on the surface of Titan that raise some intriguing possibilities.  It seems hydrogen atoms settling down from the atmosphere are disappearing at ground level, and new maps of surface hydrocarbons show a lack of a chemical called acetylene.  Both would be an excellent food source for a methane-based life form.  Experts are quick to point out that there a number of non-biological explanations for what’s going on with those chemicals. Hmmm.

And while we are in the Saturn system, check this out…lightning.   Those are actual lighting flashes, as seen by Cassini, on the night side of Saturn, in a cloud illuminated by the planet’s rings.  By Earth standards, this would be a massive storm – the cloud itself is nearly 2000 miles wide.  The thunder you hear on this video is actually enhanced for your listening pleasure.  The lightning does produce radio waves that instruments on Cassini can pick up, but the frequencies are above the range of the human ear.  But as Marlon Perkins used to say on Wild Kingdom – all scenes, whether actual or created – reflect true facts.

Falcon 9 Launch. June 4, 2010

Hello and Welcome to a special edition of “This Week In Space.”  I am talking about what might very well be the beginning of a new era in space – the door might have opened with the successful inaugural test flight of the Falcon 9 rocket – built by SpaceX.   It happened on Friday at Cape Canaveral.  The nine Merlin engines fired as designed – produced more than a million pounds of thrust – sending Falcon 9 on its way to space. The first stage separated as it was supposed to – and the second stage rocket fired on schedule as well. The only apparent fly in the ointment – second stage – along with mockup up of the Dragon Capsule – began a slow roll. No word on why just yet. SpaceX is leading the charge to open up low earth orbit to private ventures seeking to create a new industry in space. It is a lynch pin of the Obama space vision – and it remains the subject of a lot of controversy – even after this successful first flight. I caught up with SpaceX founder Elon Musk about 24 hours after the launch.

Atlantis lands. Source: NASA

We begin at the end this week – the end of an era in space. Well maybe. This was the scene at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday – commander Ken Ham dead-sticking Atlantis down the steep glide slope to Runway 33.  The mission – STS-132 – was the final scheduled flight of Atlantis.  But she is not heading straight to the museums.  She’s now back in her Orbiter Processing Facility – NASA-speak for hanger – where she will be prepped for flight on short notice should there be trouble on the remaining pair of missions. BUT the museums might have to wait -  NASA is leaving the door open to schedule an encore mission for Atlantis. Since there would be no rescue vehicle at the ready – she would likely fly with a scaled down crew that would use the Russian Soyuz as a lifeboat.  NASA will make a decision on this by mid-June. Maybe the shuttle program will end as it began – with a two person crew.

For those of you keeping score at home – If it turns out this was the last ride to space for OV-104 – here are her final game stats:  32 flights – 11 of those to the International Space Station, over 120 million miles on the odometer, 294 days in orbit, 4,649 revolutions around Earth.  She was home-away-from-home to 189 astronauts.  She carried the Magellan and Galileo interplanetary probes to space, as well as the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. She was the first orbiter to dock with the Russian Space Station Mir, and the last one to visit the Hubble Space Telescope. Not bad at all. Way to go Atlantis. Way to go…

He’s the E.F. Hutton of astronauts -  “when he talks, people listen.”  Or would Greta Garbo be a better analogy.  Or maybe J.D. Salinger.  I digress.  You guessed it, I’m talking about Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, a bona fide National Hero, and a man who chooses his words very carefully. And he has been speaking out recently in opposition to the Obama Administration’s plan to kill the moonshot program known as Constellation. This week, he took center stage again – at a House Science and Technology committee hearing.  He reiterated his support for Constellation in particular and a return to the moon in general. The man has a lifetime supply  of dry powder – and he fired at will:

The issue facing this meeting has produced substantial turmoil among space advocates. So many normally knowledgeable people were completely astounded by the President’s proposal. Had the announcement been preceded by the typical review, analysis and discussion among the Executive branch, the agency, the congress, and all the other interested and knowledgeable parties, no member of this committee would have been surprised by the announcement of a new plan.  In this case, a normally collegial sector of society was split in many fragments, some focused on contracts and money, some on work force and jobs, some on technical choices.    All because a few planners, with little or no space operations experience, attempted an end run on the normal process.    It has been painful to watch.

Armstrong was joined by the last man to walk on the moon- Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan, who also took aim at Obama’s plan, which he views as long on talk and short on funds.  In other words, “show me the money.”

And, when one examines details of the FY2011 budget proposal, nowhere is there to be found one penny allocated to support space exploration. Yes, there has been much rhetoric on transformative technology, heavy lift propulsion research, robotic precursor missions, significant investment in commercial crew and cargo capabilities, pursuit of cross-cutting space technology capabilities, climate change research, aeronautics R&D, and education initiatives, all worthwhile endeavors in their own right. Yet nowhere do we find any mention of the Human Exploration of Space and nowhere do we find a commitment in dollars to support this all important national endeavor. We (Armstrong, Lovell and I) have come to the unanimous conclusion that this budget proposal presents no challenges, has no focus, and in fact is a blueprint for a mission to ‘nowhere.’

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden was also on hand, testifying earlier in the day.  He disclosed that it will cost and estimated four and half billion dollars over five years to implement Obama’s recently announced plan to turn the Orion capsule into an ISS lifeboat – money that NASA will have to take out of other programs.  And he assured the committee that NASA is continuing work on Constellation in good faith. Yes – the work goes on until Congress weighs in because that is the way the law is written. Bolden got an earful from Arizona’s Gabrielle Giffords over NASA’s just-announced decision to reassign the outspoken Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley.

Gabrielle Giffords:  Mr. Bolden, my concern is, particularly concerning the news we had last week, that the program manager was actually working hard to make the program work, given the constraints of the budget, but again from where we sit, his work to restructure and potentially save the parts of Constellation that need to be saved, by removing him from his position…I think again it demonstrates to us that the question that I asked you earlier, whether or not you would give this committee your assurance that you were doing everything that you can as NASA administrator to make progress with Constellation for the remainder of FY 2010, when the constellation manager is removed from his position, it frankly makes me personally very dubious that that is in fact happening .  So I’m wondering again, the assurance that you can give us in the united states congress that your actually carrying this out.  and whether or not the program will actually carry forward, and whether or not you are actually planning on replacing him with someone competent, and whether or not you are planning to replace him expeditiously.

Charlie Bolden:  We would replace him with someone who is incredibly competent, I don’t think I have anyone in the hierarchy of the constellation program or anywhere else that is not competent and has my confidence. Jeff Hanley is not leaving NASA.  Jeff Hanley is moving up to become the deputy director of the Johnson Space Center for Strategic Studies and Strategic plans.  He is an incredibly talented individual.  Jeff and I have spoken for quite sometime since I became the NASA administrator, about his future.

Courtesy: SpaceX

While Constellation would be the loser under the New Obama plan, the winners are commercial space companies looking to taxi astronauts and cargo to low earth orbit.   And no one is more out in front on that than Elon Musk of SpaceX.  We are still waiting to hear a launch date for the first test flight of his Falcon 9 rocket, but its getting close.  We’ll keep you posted – check in with us at Spaceflight Now.  I skyped Elon last week, and I asked him about Neil Armstrong’s opposition to the Obama plan.  His reply was interesting, to say the least.

I’m sorry but I think Neil Armstrong is being manipulated.  And it is a sorry sight indeed.  Because he is of course a national hero.  On the other hand, Buzz Aldrin…you know, I think, you want to go back and look to national heroes on advise for the future of space, there’s Neil Armstrong, who is a great man, and then there is Buzz Aldrin who is also a great man.  Now, Buzz Aldrin is the guy with the PHD from MIT, and Neil is a pilot.  He’s always been a pilot, that’s cool.  But if you are going to look for somebody to render a judgement, a technical judgement on what program makes the most sense, I think you would probably pick the PHD from MIT, rather than the pilot.  And Buzz Aldrin, the PHD from MIT, is the one who is a huge fan of the Obama policy.

Strange times indeed in the space world. Never has a group of passionate people who agree on so much – been so deeply at odds. And never have the Apollo astronauts been so outspoken about anything. You have to wonder how thing got so polarized – and you also have to wonder how hard it would be to find a third way. All of this made me think of my good friend Andy Chaikin – author of A Man on the Moon – and more recently A Passion for Mars: Intrepid Explorers of the Red Planet.  I skyped him the other day.

Now here’s story of cooperation in space – XCOR Aerospace and Masten Space Systems are teaming up with their eye on a big prize. They are buddying up to try to win some NASA-sponsored unmanned lunar lander projects.  Last year, Masten won the $1 million first prize for Level two of NASA’s Lunar Lander Challenge. Masten’s Xoie craft had to take off and land vertically, fly horizontally,  and make a round trip between two landing sites on a simulated moonscape.  XCOR is a leader in next generation rockets and propulsion systems.  The companies are neighbors at the Mojave Spaceport – and will no doubt be the team to beat. ALSO, Masten’s chief competitor for that lunar lander challenge last year,  Armadillo Aerospace, is teaming up with Space Adventures. They are getting into the  suborbital tourism racket. The companies are aiming to charge $102 thousand dollars for a trip 62 miles into the blue yonder and 5 minutes of weightlessness.  That’s about half what a ticket on Virgin Galactic is going for, but roughly on par with what a ride on the Lynx is supposed to cost…the Lynx is the suborbital space plane under development by XCOR.  None of the companies has announced a date when they’ll actually start flying. Nice to see a price war though – a little competition is a good thing…

A Delta 4 rocket left launch pad 37B at the Cape on Thursday night – and it is safe to say this one didn’t ask for directions – it contains the latest and greatest addition to the global positioning system satellite fleet. The GPS 2F-1 promises to offer improved accuracy – a more jam resistant signal – a longer design life – and a better signal for civil signal for those us who use GPS but aren’t in the military. If this satellite goes astray – it is equipped with a stern woman’s voice who will scold the satellite – telling it is is off route – and recalculating.

And Arianespace has launched it’s 50th Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s spaceport in French Guyana.  The payload on this rocket included two telecommunications satellites.  Astra-3B will provide direct-to-home television and broadband to Europe and the Middle East.  COMSATBw 2 is a German military satellite. Afterwards – the  German general in charge said “we deserve a glass of champagne” – prompting the French to go Qui Qui!

Swift Spacecraft. Source: NASA

What happens when galaxies collide?  Well,  they pull over to the side and call the police and insurance company probably.  But new data from a NASA satellite called Swift has turned up some smoking gun evidence that galaxy collisions can really amp up the energy emitted by the supermassive black holes that reside at their centers.  Turns out such violent mergers generate so-called hard X-rays, exactly the type of the energy Swift was designed to sniff out.  Astronomers have wondered for years why a relatively small number of black holes emit vast amounts of energy.  Seems it all has to do with a clash between neighbors. You know what they say good black holes make good neighbors…

A little closer to home – in Mars orbit -  the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has beamed back some interesting data that is giving scientists a sense of what lies beneath the ice cap covering the Martian North Pole.  The Shallow Radar instrument aboard MRO can penetrate the ice to take a look at the rock formations underneath, giving scientists clues to what forces shaped the cap’s distinctive canyons and spiral troughs.  The new data suggests they were actually sculpted by wind over millions of years as the ice sheet grew.

And take a look at these images from MRO. They confirm what we told you last week – that the Phoenix Mars Lander is officially Tango Uniform. The top shot was taken by MRO’s HiRISE camera in 2008 – and it shows two clean gleaming solar arrays – the bottom shot form last month shows an asymmetrical shadow – apparently one of the solar arrays apparently broke off under the weight of hundreds of pounds of dry ice.   Mission managers had tasked the Mars Odyssey spacecraft to listen for signs of life from Phoenix in recent months…hoping that against the odds the little lander might wake up after a cold, dark winter in the Martian northern polar region.  But, they never heard a peep.

Hello, and welcome…
We have a scoop for you this week – an exclusive interview with SpaceX founder Elon Musk – we’ll ask him how things are going as he and his team prep for that high stakes first flight of the Falcon 9 rocket…And we’ll also share with you David Letterman’s reaction to seeing his first shuttle launch…that’s coming up shortly…But first some other space news – and this week in honor of the Falcon 9 countdown and Dave’s first launch – we are doing it top ten list style…

Number 10

The Mars rover "Spirit." Source: NASA/JPL

Comes from the fourth rock from the sun.  (Miles mutters to himself and counts on his fingers).  Mars!  Yeah, Mars.  On March 20, the rover Opportunity overtook the Viking-1 Lander and is now holds the surface longevity record for NASA probes on Mars.  Opportunity is now six years, 116 days and counting into a 3 month mission.    But if you are listening Oppy – don’t rest on your laurels.  Your sibling  Spirit on the other side of the planet  is in winter hibernation mode, and if she manages to wake up come Spring, she will grab the record.  Spirit landed on Mars about three weeks before Opportunity back in 2004.  And as long as we are on Mars – the team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory commanded the the Mars Odyssey spacecraft to make  a final listen for life signs from the Phoenix Mars Lander this week.  Phoenix landed in the Northern polar region back in 2008, and operated successfully for about 6 months until the cold and dark of the Martian winter set in and craft went silent.  Mission managers were pretty sure that the lander would not survive the winter, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if they might be able to reestablish communication.  Looks like “no dice” though.  Rest in Peace, Phoenix.

Number 9

An update on a manned mission to Mars that is launching next month – had ya there for a minute didn’t I? Actually this is an ersatz trip to Mars that will never get off the ground.  I am talking about the Mars 500 SIMULATED mission to the red planet. Liftoff – well actually lock down – is set for early June.  Six crew members – two Europeans, one Chinese, and three Russians will spend 520 days locked inside a spacecraft mock-up at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow.  Mission controllers are doing their best to make this mission as close to the real thing as possible.  They’ll have to take all the food they’ll need with them from day one – no ordering in pizza a la Biosphere 2.  Communication is limited to email, – and it will be intermittent – just as it would on a really interplanetary voyage, and it will include a delay of as much as 40 minutes.   ESA has picked their two crew members.  Diego Urbina, who has Italian-Colombian nationality, and Frenchman Romain Charles.  The rest of the crew will be announced later this month.

Number 8

Oil’s not so well in the Gulf of Mexico – and NASA is pitching in to help. The space agency flew its King Air  research aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico this week in an effort to help monitor the size and thickness of the BP oil spill…Researchers wondering how the oil might impact sea life.   The Langley Based King Air 200 was outfitted with instruments normally used to study clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere – which researchers hope can help them learn more about spills. NASA satellites have also been trained on the oil slick since the drilling rig exploded in April. Crew members aboard the ISS have a unique vantage point to keep an eye on the growing environmental crisis.  Cosmonaut Oleg Kotov has been watching the oil spread.

Number 7

Takes us below the sea…for yet another simulated space mission -two astronauts are embarking on the 14th Expedition of NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations – or NEEMO for short.  Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, and two other crew members, are spending two weeks in the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory off Key Largo.  Mock-ups of a lander, rover and robotic arm have been positioned on the sea floor nearby.  The crew will venture out on simulated spacewalks to work with the gear and practice setting up a habitat on another planet.  Inside, they’ll do some experiments aimed at learning more about human behavior and performance on a long duration space voyage.

Number 6

Let’s head to the second rock from the sun.  (Miles counts on his fingers again.  Oh! Venus!  Which does not get nearly as much attention as Mars.  Why you ask? Does she need a better agent? Well, the simple answer is Venus is a VERY inhospitable place…blistering hot, with crushing surface pressure… in short – hell off earth.  But Venus scientists are still very intrigued, and if all goes well – they – will soon know more about our fiery neighbor, thanks to a Japanese spacecraft called Akatsuki.  JAXA officials call Akatsuki the first interplanetary weather satellite, and it is rigged with instruments to study study the atmosphere, search for active volcanoes, and image lightning strikes.  After the Japanese H-2A rocket deploys Akatsuki, it will also jettison a second payload – a small cylinder housing a solar sail.  Once the sail opens, it will stretch nearly 66 feet in diameter, and will fly through space like a kite.  But instead of wind pushing it along, pressure from photons of light from the sun will propel it.

Number 5

Now…from a planet nearby to a galaxy nearby.
Check out this new infrared view of the galaxy Messier 83 - a perfect spiral.
This was taken using an instrument called HAWK-1 on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.
Messier 83 is located 15 million light years away in the Constellation Hydra – or the Sea Serpent.  Astronomers think this spiral galaxy looks a lot like our own Milky Way.

Number 4

The latest on the Zombie satellite – known as Galaxy 15. The wayward, unresponsive Intelsat communications satellite is still haunting the geosynchronous neighborhood…other operators had to move two of their birds out of the in order to stay clear of of the Zombie – which could knock them off the air. Galaxy 15 got blasted with a solar storm in early April – it is still transmitting – but ground controllers are unable to control it. So run for your lives — well not exactly.

Number 3

The much anticipated first flight of Falcon 9. The whole space world will be watching to see how the rocket does in its maiden test voyage. The stakes couldn’t be higher for the builder SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk. I caught up with him via Skype.

Number 2

The space shuttle Atlantis is finishing strong in space – the six astronauts on OV-104’s last manifested mission accomplished all they set out to on their trip to the station – they installed a new Russian lab – replaced some batteries – and brought up supplies and spare parts – including a backup satellite dish for space to ground communications. Atlantis is not headed straight to a museum to be named later at wheel stop – instead the KSC team will process her to be ready to fly on short notice should one of the final two crews need to be rescued. So there she will be – ready to fly – why not one more flight – with a crew small enough that they could come home on soyuz capsules if need be. Just sayin’…

Number 1

And now – drumroll please – our number one story for this week in space  – Dave Letterman was there for the last scheduled launch of Atlantis – so how was it for him?