Calista241
Calista241's JournalIn response to Trump budget, NASA ending separate technology plan
Source: ARS Technica
Even though Congress has yet to formally consider President Trump’s new budget for NASA, the space agency is already moving swiftly to implement some of its core principles. Among those is a White House desire to end a separate program within the agency focused on the development of advanced new spaceflight technologies intended to keep NASA at the cutting edge.
With an annual budget that has varied between $500 million and $1 billion, the Space Technology Mission Directorate was created in 2010 to develop the kinds of technology NASA needed to explore deeper into space, such as advanced propulsion and power systems, in-space manufacturing, and new means of landing on far-off worlds. If humans really were to really expand beyond low-Earth orbit, research and development of these new technologies was deemed critical.
The President’s fiscal year 2019 budget for the space agency seeks to realign the space technology program by folding it into NASA’s “Exploration” program, which is managing development of deep space hardware Congress has directed the space agency to build—the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground systems at Kennedy Space Center.
Some former space technology officials have begun sounding the alarm about these changes, being made without oversight from Congress. “Disastrous news!” tweeted Mason Peck on Thursday morning. He served as the space agency’s chief technologist earlier this decade. “NASA is already dismantling STMD even though the President's budget is only a month old. Don't give up. We need Space Technology if we want NASA to have a bold future. I hope Congress will reject this gutting of NASA's technology investments.”
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/in-response-to-trump-budget-nasa-ending-separate-technology-plan/
Trump Administrations Deregulation Push Heads for Outer Space
Source: Wall Street Journal
Vice President Mike Pence is expected to announce Wednesday new moves promoting private ventures in space, including easing launch rules and putting the Commerce Department in charge of broader deregulation initiatives.
The recommendations, which are awaiting President Donald Trump’s final approval, are intended to better coordinate federal efforts to spur commercial space projects, according to government and industry officials familiar with the details. With the primary goal of rolling back regulatory burdens on the budding industry, they cover new generations of advanced communications and Earth-observation satellites, space tourism and long-term plans for mining asteroids, among other things.
The actions, slated to be announced during a meeting of the White House Space Council at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, will be the most detailed moves yet to accelerate the development of commercial projects beyond the atmosphere.
Combined with earlier budget blueprints providing seed money for public-private partnerships for human space exploration, the Trump administration’s plans are focused on reducing government oversight and procedural delays for a broad range of space entrepreneurs and corporate investors, according to the government and industry officials, who have been told about the thrust of the policy shifts.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-seeks-to-stimulate-private-space-projects-1519145536
I know the WSJ isn’t popular because of the paywall, but this article loaded for me with no subscription.
Milky Way ties with neighbor in galactic arms race
Astronomers have discovered that our nearest large neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, is roughly the same size as the Milky Way. It had been thought that Andromeda was two to three times the size of the Milky Way, and that our own galaxy would ultimately be engulfed by our supposedly bigger neighbour. But the latest research, published today, evens the score between the two galaxies.
The study found the weight of the Andromeda is 800 billion times heavier than the sun, on par with the Milky Way. Astrophysicist Dr Prajwal Kafle, from the University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, said the study used a new technique to measure the speed required to escape a galaxy. "When a rocket is launched into space, it is thrown out with a speed of 11 km/s to overcome the Earth's gravitational pull," he said. "Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is over a trillion times heavier than our tiny planet Earth so to escape its gravitational pull we have to launch with a speed of 550 km/s. We used this technique to tie down the mass of Andromeda."
Dr Kafle said the research suggests scientists previously overestimated the amount of dark matter in the Andromeda galaxy. "By examining the orbits of high speed stars, we discovered that this galaxy has far less dark matter than previously thought, and only a third of that uncovered in previous observations," he said. The Milky Way and Andromeda are two giant spiral galaxies in our local Universe, and light takes a cosmologically tiny two million years to get between them.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-02-milky-ties-neighbor-galactic-arms.html#jCp
GOP senators to introduce immigration plan mirroring Trump framework
Source: The Hill
A group of GOP senators are preparing to introduce an immigration plan that lines up with President Trump's framework as the Senate barrels toward a heated debate over the issue.
Seven GOP senators, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), will file the bill, known as the Secure and Succeed Act, on Monday.
"Our proposal is supported by the President, who’s come a long way to reach a compromise. This is the only Senate proposal that has any chance of passing the House and being signed into law," Grassley said in a statement.
The legislation mirrors Trump's framework by offering a path to citizenship for roughly 1.8 million immigrants brought into the country as children illegally in exchange for $25 billion in border security.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/373369-gop-senators-to-introduce-immigration-plan-mirroring-trump-framework
The Trump administration wants to turn the International Space Station into a commercially run ventu
Source: Washington Post
The Trump administration wants to turn the International Space Station into a kind of orbiting real estate venture run not by the government, but by private industry.
The White House plans to stop funding the station after 2024, ending direct federal support of the orbiting laboratory. But it does not intend to abandon the orbiting laboratory altogether and is working on a transition plan that could turn the station over to the private sector, according to an internal NASA document obtained by The Washington Post.
“The decision to end direct federal support for the ISS in 2025 does not imply that the platform itself will be deorbited at that time — it is possible that industry could continue to operate certain elements or capabilities of the ISS as part of a future commercial platform,” the document states. “NASA will expand international and commercial partnerships over the next seven years in order to ensure continued human access to and presence in low Earth orbit.”
In its budget request, to be released Monday, the administration would request $150 million in fiscal year 2019, with more in additional years “to enable the development and maturation of commercial entities and capabilities which will ensure that commercial successors to the ISS — potentially including elements of the ISS — are operational when they are needed.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/02/11/the-trump-administration-wants-to-turn-the-international-space-station-into-a-commercially-run-venture/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_iss-12pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.507df68abb67
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