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Space Florida gets its budget slashed
Jim Ash reports from Tallahassee:

In the midst of final budget negotiations, a Senate leader seriously wounded Space Florida, the quasi-governmental group that promotes the commercial space industry.

Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey and a powerful transportation spending committee chairman, slashed the group's $4 million appropriation nearly in half, saying he was angry at reports that it spent $300,000 on a Pennsylvania lobbying firm with ties to its president.

Space Florida President Steve Koehler was racing to Tallahassee on Wednesday to meet with Fasano and key legislative leaders. Spokeswoman Deb Spicer disputed reports in the Orlando Sentinel, saying that Space Florida did not spend state tax dollars for lobbying. The two firms the public-private industry advocacy group hired for $200,000are based in Florida and Washington, D.C., Spicer said.

"Steve Koehler is going to be meeting with key lawmakers to set the record straight," she said.

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NASA Is "Go" For May 11 Launch
NASA just cleared shuttle Atlantis and seven astronauts for a May 11 launch on a fifth and final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Senior managers took a poll at a the conclusion of an executive-level Flight Readiness Review and firmly established the May 11 launch date.

Liftoff time that day will be 2:01 p.m.

A news conference is scheduled for 5 p.m. You can watch it live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box at the righthand side of this page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage.

The Atlantis astronauts aim to outfit Hubble with two new state-of-the-art science instruments, repair two others and equip the observatory with new batteries and other gear that should keep it operating in orbit for at least another five to 10 years.

Led by veteran astronaut Scott Altman, the crew includes Gregory "Ray Jay" Johnson and five mission specialists: Megan McArthur, Michael Good, Michael Massimino, Drew Feustel and John Grunsfeld.

The crew is scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Space Center on May 8. A three-day launch countdown will start up that same day.

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Shuttle Shutdown Resumes Friday with Job Cuts
A phased shutdown of the space shuttle program resumes Friday with a reduction of about 160 manufacturing jobs, NASA officials said today.

By the end of September, 900 out of about 12,000 shuttle program jobs will be eliminated. About 400 of those cuts are layoffs, with the remainder attrition or workers shifted by contractors to different programs.

"They are primarily manufacturing team members, and we have delivered the last pieces of hardware that those team members produce, and we don't keep them on the rolls," Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon said during a news conference at Kennedy Space Center.

"And that is in order to get our budget down to the marks and the assumptions that we had made early on," Shannon added. "We will start tomorrow and continue with the workforce reduction that we had outlined."

Congress last year asked NASA to freeze that reduction process through April 30, 2009, to keep open the option of flying shuttles after a planned retirement of the fleet in September 2010.

The pause gave the incoming Obama administration an opportunity to change policy and add to the eight missions currently on the manifest.

Obama supports adding a ninth mission if it can be flown safely by the end of 2010. The mission would deliver the Alpha-Magnetic Spectrometer physics experiment to the International Space Station.

But without an infusion of money for the 2010 fiscal year - for which a detailed budget is expected to be released soon - NASA said it had no choice but to continue its gradual shutdown of shuttle operations so it could fly out its remaining missions.

"Only if we were directed to fly additional missions would we halt that activity," Shannon said.

The near-term job cuts will primarily affect facilities in New Orleans and Utah where the shuttle's external tanks and solid rocket booster, respectively, are manufactured.

Jobs at KSC will be maintained to continue launching and processing shuttles. But the center faces the loss of an estimated 3,500 jobs once shuttle stop flying.

NASA plans to update Congress on job loss projections next month after releasing its budget.

Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations, said the shuttle program's plans were clear, but it was less certain how quickly jobs would ramp up for the shuttle's replacement program, called Constellation.

If $2.5 billion proposed recently by congress budget planners came through for the 2011 fiscal year, Gerstenmaier said it could allow shuttles to fly past 2010 if delays force slips in the current manifest.

Despite the shuttle program beginning to near its end, Shannon said it was a positive for NASA to transition to new goals in human spaceflight.

"At some point you have to decide whether what the shuttle was meant to do has been done, and I would submit that it has," Shannon said.

Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions and construction of the space station wouldn't have been possible without the shuttle, he noted.

"Once those things are done, they're done, and you should move on," he said. "I would submit that that time has come, and there's that realization among the team members, that we have done those things that the shuttle was uniquely capable of doing, and it's time to move on to the next system."

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Hubble TV Show Debuts Saturday on WBCC-TV
A Florida Today television special on NASA's upcoming mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope will debut on WBCC-TV Saturday and then air several times before a scheduled May 11 launch.

"Saving Hubble: Giving NASA's Greatest Telescope A New Life" will air at noon Saturday on the local Public Broadcasting Service TV channel -- PBS For Florida's Space Coast.

The half-hour special also will be broadcast at:

    * 8 p.m. Monday, May 4.
    * 10 p.m. Wednesday, May 6.
    * 9 p.m. Friday, May 8.
    * 7 p.m. Sunday, May 10.
    * 11 a.m. Monday, May 11.


Liftoff of Atlantis and a seven-member astronaut crew is scheduled at 2:01 p.m. May 11.

A three-day launch countdown is scheduled to pick up on Friday, May 8. The astronaut crew, led by veteran mission commander Scott Altman, is scheduled to jet to Kennedy Space Center that same day. The crew includes pilot Gregory "Ray J" Johnson and five mission specialists: robot arm operator Megan McArthur and spacewalkers John Grunsfeld, Andrew "Drew" Feustel, Michael Massimino and Michael Good.

The television show will detail plans for NASA's fifth and final Hubble servicing mission, which will feature five spacewalks on consecutive days. The astronauts aim to outfit Hubble with two new state-of-the-art science instruments, repair two others and equip the telescope with new batteries and gyroscopes -- gear that will enable it to operate in orbit for at least another five to 10 years.

People who have worked on the Hubble project for decades help tell the story of NASA's flagship observatory, which was an infamous failure when first launched and has gone through very public ups and downs over the course of the past two decades.

The show also details NASA's plan to launch shuttle Endeavour and a crew of four astronauts on what would be a daring and dramatic rescue mission should Atlantis sustain critical damage during the mission.

The show examines the telescope's importance to astronomy and our understanding of our solar system and the universe, and it winds up with The Best of Hubble -- iconic Hubble images and the favorites of some of the folks who have spent entire careers working with the most productive science instrument ever devised by human engineers.

WBCC-TV is broadcast over the airwaves on Channel 68. Local cable television broadcasts WBCC-TV on Channel 5.

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Hubble TV Show Debuts Saturday on WBCC-TV
A Florida Today television special on NASA's upcoming mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope will debut on WBCC-TV Saturday and then air several times before a scheduled May 11 launch.

"Saving Hubble: Giving NASA's Greatest Telescope A New Life" will air at noon Saturday on the local Public Broadcasting Service TV channel -- PBS For Florida's Space Coast.

The half-hour special also will be broadcast at:

    * 8 p.m. Monday, May 4.
    * 10 p.m. Wednesday, May 6.
    * 9 p.m. Friday, May 8.
    * 7 p.m. Sunday, May 10.
    * 11 a.m. Monday, May 11.


Liftoff of Atlantis and a seven-member astronaut crew is scheduled at 2:01 p.m. May 11.

A three-day launch countdown is scheduled to pick up on Friday, May 8. The astronaut crew, led by veteran mission commander Scott Altman, is scheduled to jet to Kennedy Space Center that same day. The crew includes pilot Gregory "Ray J" Johnson and five mission specialists: robot arm operator Megan McArthur and spacewalkers John Grunsfeld, Andrew "Drew" Feustel, Michael Massimino and Michael Good.

The television show will detail plans for NASA's fifth and final Hubble servicing mission, which will feature five spacewalks on consecutive days. The astronauts aim to outfit Hubble with two new state-of-the-art science instruments, repair two others and equip the telescope with new batteries and gyroscopes -- gear that will enable it to operate in orbit for at least another five to 10 years.

People who have worked on the Hubble project for decades help tell the story of NASA's flagship observatory, which was an infamous failure when first launched and has gone through very public ups and downs over the course of the past two decades.

The show also details NASA's plan to launch shuttle Endeavour and a crew of four astronauts on what would be a daring and dramatic rescue mission should Atlantis sustain critical damage during the mission.

The show examines the telescope's importance to astronomy and our understanding of our solar system and the universe, and it winds up with The Best of Hubble -- iconic Hubble images and the favorites of some of the folks who have spent entire careers working with the most productive science instrument ever devised by human engineers.

WBCC-TV is broadcast over the airwaves on Channel 68. Local cable television broadcasts WBCC-TV on Channel 5.

kl90

Hubble TV Show Debuts Saturday on WBCC-TV
A Florida Today television special on NASA's upcoming mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope will debut on WBCC-TV Saturday and then air several times before a scheduled May 11 launch.

"Saving Hubble: Giving NASA's Greatest Telescope A New Life" will air at noon Saturday on the local Public Broadcasting Service TV channel -- PBS For Florida's Space Coast.

The half-hour special also will be broadcast at:

    * 8 p.m. Monday, May 4.
    * 10 p.m. Wednesday, May 6.
    * 9 p.m. Friday, May 8.
    * 7 p.m. Sunday, May 10.
    * 11 a.m. Monday, May 11.


Liftoff of Atlantis and a seven-member astronaut crew is scheduled at 2:01 p.m. May 11.

A three-day launch countdown is scheduled to pick up on Friday, May 8. The astronaut crew, led by veteran mission commander Scott Altman, is scheduled to jet to Kennedy Space Center that same day. The crew includes pilot Gregory "Ray J" Johnson and five mission specialists: robot arm operator Megan McArthur and spacewalkers John Grunsfeld, Andrew "Drew" Feustel, Michael Massimino and Michael Good.

The television show will detail plans for NASA's fifth and final Hubble servicing mission, which will feature five spacewalks on consecutive days. The astronauts aim to outfit Hubble with two new state-of-the-art science instruments, repair two others and equip the telescope with new batteries and gyroscopes -- gear that will enable it to operate in orbit for at least another five to 10 years.

People who have worked on the Hubble project for decades help tell the story of NASA's flagship observatory, which was an infamous failure when first launched and has gone through very public ups and downs over the course of the past two decades.

The show also details NASA's plan to launch shuttle Endeavour and a crew of four astronauts on what would be a daring and dramatic rescue mission should Atlantis sustain critical damage during the mission.

The show examines the telescope's importance to astronomy and our understanding of our solar system and the universe, and it winds up with The Best of Hubble -- iconic Hubble images and the favorites of some of the folks who have spent entire careers working with the most productive science instrument ever devised by human engineers.

WBCC-TV is broadcast over the airwaves on Channel 68. Local cable television broadcasts WBCC-TV on Channel 5.

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Budget coming this week won't shorten gap
Editor's Note: This is the second week for John Kelly's new space column. It runs Monday in the newspaper, but you'll be able to see it here early on Sunday afternoons. If you want to go back and read last week's column, you can click here to find it. Thanks, and please click comment below to weigh in or e-mail John at jkelly@floridatoday.com.

The White House is not going to stop the shutdown of the space shuttle program.

People are getting laid off. Equipment will be dismantled. Already-tenuous supply lines will be closed off.

If you're waiting for this week's release of the NASA budget and hoping for a stay of execution, move on. It's not coming.

The White House will make public, as early as Thursday, a detailed funding proposal for the space agency. Do not expect anything that deviates from the budget blueprint we were shown a few weeks ago. A quick review of what NASA folks are saying and doing provides all the clues needed to figure out what President Barack Obama plans to do about the shuttles' retirement, the return-to-the-moon program, and the thousands of jobs hanging in the balance.

Here's what to expect in the 2010 NASA budget:

Funding for one additional space shuttle mission, bringing the total number of remaining launches to nine. Obama's blueprint said NASA must prove it can fly an extra mission safely and before the end of 2010, extending the program's life by three months. There's political talk about flying shuttles through 2011 or even 2015, but it's just talk unless Congress backs it with extra money. It would cost up to $4 billion more per year to keep flying shuttle while also staying on track with developing a new system, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

More money, and unprecedented emphasis, will be given to space-based missions to study the Earth. In particular, expect the administration to beef up research about climate change. For this new administration, climate-change research is listed in every public document as first among NASA's priorities, ahead of human space flight, robotic deep-space probes and aeronautics. That's no surprise. As a candidate, the president said he would re-examine the value of the human missions compared to robotic spacecraft and Earth science.

Funding and support for a return to the moon, but with caveats about the scale of the missions and the timeline. The outline released so far indicates the administration continues to aim for a moon landing by 2020, but there are few details. Acting NASA Administrator Christopher Scolese told Congress last week that NASA may scale back its ambitions. The missions might be more like the short visits achieved four decades ago by Apollo astronauts, and not the longer stays necessary for engineers and astronauts to figure out how to make trips to Mars.

What does that mean for Kennedy Space Center? The gap between the shuttles' retirement around 2010 and the first flights of a new space transportation system around 2015 is not going to get shorter, despite pledges by both candidates for president last fall that they would shorten the hiatus. That's a campaign trail promise that will not be kept. The area will lose at least 3,500 space jobs by 2015, plus thousands more non-space jobs outside the spaceport gates.

The nearly $19 billion budget President Obama proposes for NASA is several billion dollars short of the amount needed to extend the shuttle program and develop new rockets and spacecraft. So, the five-year gap that was planned as part of President Bush's space strategy is almost upon KSC and it might drag on for more than five years.

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Congressional medals sought for Apollo 11, Glenn
Florida delegates are among those seeking to bestow the highest congressional honor on four American space pioneers.

Legislation introduced last week would award gold medals to the crew of Apollo 11, the first mission to land people on the moon, and to John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth.

Florida Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez, and Reps. Alan Grayson, Suzanne Kosmas and Bill Posey have signed on to the bill, which you can read here.

"The motivation, pride, and technological leadership the lunar landing project gave our nation has been unmatched by any project undertaken by any nation since," Martinez, of Orlando, said in a statement. "It's fitting to honor the people and the project that brought America to the forefront of technological advancements and space exploration."

The 40th anniversary of the Eagle's landing and Neil Armstrong's famous "giant leap for mankind" is approaching July 20. Armstrong walked on the moon with Buzz Aldrin while Michael Collins orbited overhead in the command module.

Glenn launched from Kennedy Space Center in Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962, and completed a pioneering three-orbit mission in just under five hours.

He became the oldest astronaut to fly in space at 77, when he flew a nine-day mission aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998. That was the year he concluded a 24-year run as a U.S. senator from Ohio.

Congress awarded its first gold medal to George Washington on March 25, 1776. Other notable awardees with aviation or spaceflight ties include the Wright brothers in 1909, Charles Lindbergh in 1928 and Robert Goddard in 1959.

Gold medals have been awarded 143 times to individuals or groups through July 2008, according to the House's Office of the Clerk. You can see the full list here.

The legislation must be sponsored by at least two-thirds of the House and at least 67senators before being considered, according to the clerk. The bill would appropriate up to $50,000 for the medals, which would be presented by the president.

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ULA Delta II Sets Sail from Vandenberg
Blogger update, 7:15 p.m.: ULA has confirmed successful separation of the spacecraft in orbit.

A United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket has blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The rocket lifted off at 4:24 p.m. EDT carrying an experimental satellite for the Missile Defense Agency.

The payload, called the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (ATRR), is scheduled to separate 58 minutes into flight.

NASA's Launch Services Program, which is based at Kennedy Space Center, oversaw the launch. No webcast or television coverage was provided.

Nine strap-on solid rocket boosters burned out and were jettisoned and first stage main engines cut off on schedule, according to ULA launch commentary. Payload fairing separation and second stage ignition followed.

The mission tests a space-based sensor component of a layered Ballistic Missile Defense System to detect, track and intercept ballistic missiles, according to ULA.

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White House to review NASA's moonshot program
This just in from James Dean

President Obama will order a comprehensive review of NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon when the agency's proposed 2010 budget is released Thursday.

Expected to last 60 to 90 days, the independent review will examine designs for the launch and exploration vehicles proposed for use by the Constellation program and the timeframe for flying lunar missions, according to sources familiar with the budget planning but not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Norman Augustine, a retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. and former president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an industry association, is the likely candidate to lead the study, the sources said.

Augustine could speak publicly about the review as early as Friday.

Current NASA plans call for missions to the moon by 2020, a target set by the space exploration vision established in 2004 by former President George W. Bush.

But the agency last month put on hold contract awards for preliminary designs of the Ares V heavy-lift rocket and Altair lunar lander, pending release of the budget.

The coming five-year budget reduces the funding planned for Constellation starting in 2013, when development budgets were expected to start growing to cover components needed for lunar missions, sources said.

The Ares I rocket and Orion capsule, which are being developed to start flying crews to the International Space Station as early as 2015, are not likely to be ready on schedule without significant funding increases, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In its own internal study, the Constellation Acceleration Study, the space agency said it was at least $1.9 billion short of the funding needed to keep the program on track let alone speed it up.

(See that Constellation Acceleration Report by clicking here).

The cost to reach the first human flight in 2010 has increased from about $28 billion to about $36 billion, and NASA said recently that it would reduce the number of seats on the Orion capsule from six to four to maintain its timeline.

Obama so far has shown no intention of extending shuttle missions, which are scheduled to end next year after eight or nine more flights.

At least 3,500 Kennedy Space Center employees could lose jobs after the last mission in late 2010, according to NASA projections.

The agency recently submitted more detail to Congress about two options for extending the shuttle's service life.

One would add three flights and extend the shuttle through 2012 for an additional $4.7 billion, according to NASA's report.

The other, to fly three missions a year through 2015 and potentially eliminate a gap in U.S. human spaceflight, would cost an extra $14 billion.

(See that shuttle extension study report by clicking here).

The studies were prepared in response to questions from members of Congress who have expressed interest in possibly extending the space shuttle program to shorten the gap before a new vehicle is ready. However, the NASA study noted that without significant increases in funding, extending the shuttle program would not solve the long-term problem. The gap, the study said, would "simply be shifted out, not shortened."

During the roughly five-year hiatus currently projected, NASA would rely on Russian Soyuz vehicles to ferry crews to the space station.

A White House spokesman declined to comment Tuesday on the forthcoming Constellation review.

"The U.S. human space flight program is a very high priority and the Administration believes it is extremely important to ensure that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving its boldest aspirations in space," the spokesman said.

This report contains reporting from James Dean reporting from Cape Canaveral and Eun Kim reporting from Washington.

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Nelson: Obama Supports Shuttle Flexibility
President Obama will not force NASA to ground the space shuttle fleet before all eight or nine remaining missions are flown, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said today.

"White House tells me the president will fly all nine remaining shuttle missions - even if it means flying the shuttle an extra year," the Florida senator said via Twitter.

In briefings with the White House yesterday and today, Nelson was assured that missions could slip into 2011 if they can't be completed on schedule by late 2010, according to his office.

That is the president's first promise that the shuttle will not face a hard 2010 deadline, which Nelson and other Space Coast representatives have argued could hurt mission safety by creating intense schedule pressure - a contributing factor in the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

However, Nelson was told the president expects the missions to be flown on time.

A fiscal year 2010 budget recently passed by Congress included an additional $2.5 billion in 2011 to provide NASA more flexibility for flying out the shuttle. That funding is not guaranteed to come through next year, but the president's backing would presumably help the cause.

NASA on Thursday is scheduled to release its five-year budget plan.

Sources familiar with the budget, but not authorize to speak publicly about it, say Obama will call for a comprehensive review of the moon program intended to replace the shuttle, which may not be ready by 2015.

Any extension of shuttle flights beyond 2010, if necessary, could prolong thousands of jobs at Kennedy Space Center that are expected to be eliminated after the shuttle's retirement.

Eight more shuttle missions are currently planned, including the last one to service the Hubble Space Telescope, which is scheduled to blast off from KSC at 2:01 p.m. Monday. The rest would complete assembly of the International Space Station.

Obama has supported adding a ninth mission to deliver the already built Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer physics experiment to the station, but funding hasn't yet been approved.

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External Tank Arrives for Discovery
The 15-story external tank that will help boost shuttle Discovery into orbit during a targeted August liftoff has arrived by barge at Kennedy Space Center's turn basin.

The familiar orange tank - dubbed ET-132 and the 128th built by Lockheed Martin Corp. - began its 900-mile journey from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans last Friday.

Only five more tanks await delivery to KSC, where three tanks are now on site, including those attached to Atlantis and Endeavour on launch pads 39A and 39B, respectively.

One more tank is in production that would service a shuttle mission not yet on the manifest, if funding for it is approved. NASA's budget blueprint for the 2010 fiscal year says "an additional flight may be conducted if it can safely and affordably be flown by the end of 2010."

The external tank, measuring 154 feet tall and 28 feet in diameter, will be removed from the covered barge Pegasus onto a transporter and rolled into the spaceport's 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building.

When loaded with more than 500,000 gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the tank will weigh more than 1.6 million pounds.

Click here to see a fact sheet with more ET stats.

Lockheed Martin said ET-132 was the first that employed a process called "friction stir welding" on some liquid hydrogen tank barrel welds, rather than traditional fusion welding. The process, which does not melt materials, produces more efficient weld joints yielding 80 percent of base material strength, according to the company.

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NASA Budget Assumes 2010 Shuttle Retirement
Blogger Note: Updated Throughout. News Conference Live in The Flame Trench at 2:30 p.m.

The Obama Administration unveiled NASA's 2010 budget today and it assumes that the space agency will complete the International Space Station and retire the shuttle fleet in 2010.

"The International Space Station is a complex of research laboratories in low Earth orbit in which American, Russian, Canadian, European, and Japanese astronauts are conducting unique scientific and technological investigations in a microgravity environment. The 2010 President's Budget provides funding for Space Station launch processing activities, on-orbit assembly, and continuation of research payload and experiment deliveries to orbit.," a budget document posted at the White House web site says.

"The objective of the Space Station is to support human space exploration and conduct science experiments unique to the location of the Space Station. NASA plans to complete assembly of the Space Station in 2010 prior to Shuttle retirement, including the delivery of the Cupola, Node 3, and logistics and supplies. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) science experiment will be flown after these flights if it can be safely and affordably completed in calendar year 2010," the document says.

"The Space Shuttle program's mission is to support space exploration by completing the assembly of the International Space Station by the end of the decade. The 2010 President's Budget request assumes the Space Shuttle will fly five missions in 2010,
with an additional flight to deliver the AMS science payload if it can be safely and affordably completed in calendar year 2010," the document says.

"The U.S. human space flight program is a very high priority and the administration believes it is extremely important to ensure that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving its boldest aspirations in space," a White House spokesman said.

Click HERE to download and save the 11-page document.

You can also watch a NASA news briefing on the budget here in The Flame Trench at 2:30 p.m. Simply click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of this page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage. Be sure to refresh this page, too, for updates.

Reaction on Florida's Space Coast was swift. "NASA's budget release reflects the beginning hints of President Obama's priorities, which is a strengthening of earth sciences and robotic missions as well as support for the Constellation program," said Lynda Weatherman, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Commission olf Florida's Space Coast.

"Unfortunately the 2010 budget isn't enough to do bold new things and perhaps it is unfair to expect that until a new NASA administrator can complete a review of major programs and determine the appropriate direction of the agency," she said.

"Meanwhile, there is a still a big hit coming to the Space Coast with the retirement of the Shuttle, whether it happens in 2010 or 2011. We are hopeful that over the next five years, reordered priorities of a new agency administrator will take us to a robust space program once again."

The reaction from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, was mixed.

He said Obama "has committed to finishing all nine space shuttle missions, regardless of how long it takes; and, to make full use of the International Space Station."

"This is a step in the right direction," he added. "But down the road the administration's budget does not match what candidate Obama said about the future of our space program. Still, he's assured me these numbers are subject to change, pending a review he has ordered of NASA."

Obama ordered up a review of NASA programs that will be headed by former Martin Marietta Chairman Norman Augustine. Augustine chaired a 1990 review of NASA programs that recommended NASA programs be refocused on science.

The Augustine committee's 1991 report proposed that NASA adopt a "pay-as-you-go" approach to President George H. W. Bush's vision of putting American astronauts on Mars by 2019. NASA prior to that was following an open-ended decades-long approach to exploring the moon and then Mars.

Ironically, the committee also recommended NASA consolidate its exploration efforts under a single "Office of Exploration" that would be headed by an Associate Administrator for Exploration.

NASA hired Michael Griffin from the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization to head the office.

The new Augustine review is expected to be finished within 90 days.

NASA estimates that some 3,500 jobs will be lost at Kennedy Space Center after the retirement of the shuttle fleet. The agency is scheduled to launch nine more shuttle missions -- eight to the International Space Station and one to service the Hubble Space Telescope a fifth and final time.

The Hubble mission is set for launch Monday.

"The 2010 President's Budget provides specific program investments for vehicle safety and supportability needed to maintain a viable Shuttle fleet until its retirement by the end of 2010. The 2010 Budget request will allow NASA to combat flight hardware obsolescence, maintain ground systems and facilities, and to continue progress towards an orderly phase-out of the program," the document says.

"In addition, the Shuttle program will support the Space Operations and Exploration Systems Mission Directorates to leverage select Shuttle flight hardware and ground systems to advance the development of future human spaceflight systems.
Space and Flight Support is comprised of multiple capabilities."

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NASA Unveils $18.7 Billion Budget For 2010
The Obama Administration is requesting $18.686 billion "to advance Earth science, complete the International Space Station, explore the solar system and conduct aeronautics research," according to a summary leased by NASA today.

The budget request represents an increase of $903.6 million, about 5 percent, above the amount provided NASA in the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, the summary said.

According to the summary:

"The FY 2010 budget does a number of things: it supports the Administration's commitment to deploy a global climate change research and monitoring system; it funds a strong program of space exploration involving humans and robots with the goal of returning Americans to the moon and exploring other destinations; and it supports the safe flight of the Space Shuttle to complete assembly of the International Space Station by the Space Shuttle's planned retirement.

With the FY 2010 budget request, we will advance our global climate change research. NASA's investment in Earth science research satellites, airborne sensors, computer models and analysis already has revolutionized scientific knowledge and predictions of climate change and its effects. Using the National Research Council's recommended priorities for space-based Earth science research, we will develop new sensors to support the Administration's goal of deploying a global climate research and monitoring system.

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Obama Orders Up Sweeping Review Of NASA
The Obama Administration ordered up a sweeping review of NASA today that could lead to significant changes to the agency's plans to send American astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Among the issues up for review: the architecture former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin put in place in 2005, which led to the ongoing development of Ares I rockets and Orion spacecraft while laying out plans for the Ares V heavy-lift rocket and the Altair lunar lander.

"The President's goal is to ensure that these programs remain on a strong and stable footing well into the 21st Century, and this review will be crucial to meeting that goal." said John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

A NASA news conference will be webcast live here in The Flame Trench at 2:30 p.m. Acting NASA Administrator Christopher Scolese will discuss the 2010 NASA budget. Click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of this page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage. And be sure to refresh this page for updates.

As previously reported in The Flame Trench as well as Florida Today print editions, former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, who led a similar review of NASA programs in 1990, will head up the review. A panel of experts will be named in the near future.

In a briefing with reporters attended by Eun Kyung Kim of Gannett News Service in Washington, D.C., Holdren said the review will "provide a fresh look at the U.S. human spaceflight program and the options that we have available to us going forward to confront a mix of challenges and opportunities that we face."

He said the panel will move and report quickly.

"It's going to report back in time to effect budget decisions that will be made in the August time frame," he said.

According to the joint White House-NASA news release:

"The review panel will assess a number of architecture options, taking into account such objectives as: 1) expediting a new U.S. capability to support use of the International Space Station; 2) supporting missions to the Moon and other destinations beyond low Earth orbit; 3) stimulating commercial space flight capabilities; and 4) fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities.

"Among the parameters to be considered in the course of its review are crew and mission safety, life-cycle costs, development time, national space industrial base impacts, potential to spur innovation and encourage competition, and the implications and impacts of transitioning from current human space flight systems.

"The review will consider the appropriate amounts of R&D and complementary robotic activity necessary to support various human space flight activities, as well as the capabilities that are likely to be enabled by each of the potential architectures under consideration. It will also explore options for extending International Space Station operations beyond 2016."

Augustine chaired a 1990 review of NASA programs that recommended NASA programs be refocused on science. The report was ordered up by then-Vice President Dan Quayle at a time when NASA was reeling from the discovery of the Hubble Space Telescope's misshappen mirror and fuel leaks that grounded NASA's shuttle fleet.

The Augustine committee's 1991 report proposed that NASA adopt a "pay-as-you-go" approach to President George H. W. Bush's vision of putting American astronauts on Mars by 2019. NASA prior to that was following an open-ended decades-long approach to exploring the moon and then Mars.

The committee also recommended NASA consolidate its exploration efforts under a single "Office of Exploration" that would be headed by an Associate Administrator for Exploration.

Ironically, NASA hired Michael Griffin from the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization to head the office. Griffin played a key role in designing the architecture that the new Augustine Committee will review.

President George W. Bush nominated Griffin as NASA Administrator in April 2005. Griffin wanted to stay on as NASA Administrator resigned as a matter of course on Jan. 20, the day Obama was inaugurated.

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Space Florida's Kohler resigns
Space Florida President Steve Kohler has resigned effective Friday.

The embattled administrator recently fought off an attempt to cut by half the agency's $4 million budget over a controversy about paying a lobbyist.

Also, Kohler had been criticized by the head of SpaceX, Elon Musk, who complained that Kohler supported a competing launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

"My capacity to serve effectively as president likewise has been damaged," Kohler wrote in a resignation letter to Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp. "Therefore, in order to remove the unfair distraction and enable Space Florida to move forward with complete focus on space in Florida, I am resigning as president effective May 8, 2009."

State Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, said he was disappointed to learn of the resignation.

"He left Space Florida in much better shape than when he came," Altman said. The lawmaker did not know whether provision had been made for an interim leader.

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NASA: Ares, Orion To Continue During Review
NASA will press ahead with its plans to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 while an Obama Administration review of the agency's human space flight program unfolds, the acting head of the agency said.

"We're going to keep on moving on with the plan that we have. We're going to keep on moving on with the assembly of the space station, continue flying the shuttle and continue the development of the Ares I, Orion and associated Constellation systems," Acting NASA Administrator Chris Scolese said in a news briefing at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"We're also relying on and funding the service to deliver cargo to the space station commercially. That's something that's new, that hadn't been heard of before. And we're also stimulating the commercial crew access to the space station with this budget."

Scolese also said NASA still aims to complete the International Space Station and retire the shuttle fleet by the end of September 2010. But some of those flights could slip into 2011.

"They could. The commitment is to complete those nine flights. Today, with the manifest as we understand it, we're confident we can complete those by the end of fiscal year 2010," Scolese said.

"If we run into difficulties, of course we'll have to go off and address that, and that could mean that we spill over beyond the end of fiscal 2010."

NASA has no money budgeted for shuttle operations beyond fiscal 2010. But members of Congress with ties to the human space flight program have been lobbying for an additional $2.5 billion in case NASA fails to finish the International Space Station before the current deadline.

Scolese made his comments during a briefing on NASA's $18.7 billion proposed budget for fiscal year 2010.

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Obama Antes Up Money For Extra Shuttle Mission
NASA's proposed $18.7 billion budget for 2010 includes the money needed to fly an extra shuttle mission that President Obama promised to add to the agency' schedule prior to the retirement of the shuttle fleet.

In a teleconference this evening with reporters, NASA space operations chief William Gerstenmaier said the budget includes about $300 million to fly a large particle physics experiment up to the International Space Station. Obama had pledged to add one extra mission during a campaign stop in Titusville last August.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer now is scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center aboard shuttle Discovery on September 16, 2010. The proposed NASA budget for 2010 directs NASA to launch the AMS if it can be done safely and affordably by the end of 2010.

The AMS is a 15,000-pound detector that is designed to sift through cosmic rays, looking for evidence of the mysterious dark matter -- a hypothetical form of matter that is believed to make up 90 percent of the universe; it is invisible. It does not absorb or emit light.

NASA agreed to launch the detector -- which was built as a collaborative effort of 16 nations -- is the brainchild of MIT physicist and Nobel laureate Sam Ting.

NASA agreed to launch the detector to the station in 1995 and then dropped it from the shuttle schedule after the 2003 Columbia accident. NASA in the wake of the loss wanted cut the number of remaining shuttle missions to the bare minimum required to complete the station, and the spectrometer was dropped off the manifest.

NASA now plans nine more shuttle missions prior to the retirement of the agency's three-orbiter fleet of winged spaceships. Eight of those will be International Space Station assembly or outfitting missions; the other is a fifth and final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

That flight is set to lift off at 2:01 p.m. Monday.

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Rain In Spain Could Ground Shuttle Atlantis
NASA expects good weather at Kennedy Space Center for the planned launch Monday of Atlantis but rain in Spain could keep the shuttle bolted to its seaside launch pad.

Seven astronauts aim to launch at 2:01 p.m. Monday on NASA's fifth and final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Kathy Winters, a shuttle weather officer with the Air Force's 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron, said there is an 80 percent chance that conditions on Florida's Space Coast will be acceptable for an on-time liftoff.

But there is a chance of rain showers within 20 nautical miles of an emergency landing site at Moron, Spain, and NASA launch commit criteria call for at least one Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) site to be available.

NASA normally staffs two other sites -- Zaragosa in Spain and Istres in France -- but Atlantis is flying a due east trajectory to rendezvous with the Hubble observatory and neither of the other sites could be reached in the event of an emergency as a result.

So NASA will be keeping close tabs on the weather at Moron; astronaut George Zamka will be flying weather reconnaissance around the area and reporting real time to NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston.

Check out the detailed weather forecast HERE.

It wouldn't be the first time weather overseas has stopped a shuttle launch despite Chamber-Of-Commerce conditions in Florida. Challenger scrubbed once before its 10th and final flight due to adverse conditions at a TAL site, and a handful of other missions have been delayed due to weather overseas.

NASA and contractor engineers, meanwhile, will be called to their stations in the storied Launch Control Center here at Kennedy Space Center at 3:30 p.m. today, and the launch countdown will pick up at 4 p.m.

Atlantis mission commander Scott Altman and his crew are scheduled to arrive at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility at 5 p.m. today. You can watch live coverage here in The Flame Trench by clicking on the NASA TV box on the righthand side of the page. Doing so will launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage of the crew arrival. Be sure to refresh this page, too, for periodic updates.

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Panel Puts Moon Program Under Microscope
A blue-ribbon panel will examine alternatives to NASA's Ares rockets and Orion spacecraft but limit the number of options ultimately presented to President Barack Obama, its chairman said today.

NASA's aim to return to the moon and use it as a proving ground for future expeditions to Mars, asteroids and other celestial destinations also will be reconsidered.

"We will be looking at different architectures as well as the existing architecture," Norman Augustine, former chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin, said in a teleconference with reporters today.

"We will look at derivatives and we've been asked to provide options," he said. "That means at least two but not a large number because I think it would be of no value to the administration for us to offer 10 options, so there will probably be a couple options."

The Obama Administration launched a sweeping review of NASA's human space flight program Thursday as the agency unveiled a proposed $18.7 billion budget for fiscal 2010. Augustine, who headed a similar review of NASA programs in 1990, was selected to serve as chairman of a panel of experts now being assembled. The administration directed the panel to report back by the end of August.

In the wake of the 2003 Columbia accident, the Bush Administration directed NASA to complete the International Space Station and retire its shuttle fleet by the end of September 2010.

NASA also was directed to build a new crew exploration vehicle, have it ready to fly by 2014, and return astronauts to the moon no later than 2020.

NASA since has spent $6.9 billion on Project Constellation, which is developing two Ares rockets, Apollo-like Orion space capsules and the Altair lunar lander. The agency is investing in that architecture at a rate of about $300 million a month.

Augustine said the panel's examination of NASA's human space flight program will be wide-ranging.

"The fundamental guidance that we have been given, and we're comfortable with, is we're to take a fresh look, and go where the facts are, and basically call it the way we see it," Augustine said.

"Having said that, there is one boundary condition none of us can do anything about, and that is we are where we are. We have programs under way. There are systems existing, being built, and so that's sort of the starting condition, which doesn't mean you have to abide by that in the future, but you can't ignore it."

The fact that the Obama Administration ordered up the review shouldn't come as a surprise, Augustine said.

"We are planning to spend billions of dollars on the human space flight program and it's wise to make sure we're spending that the way we should," he said. ""We have a new administration and it would probably be imprudent on their part not to examine this major of a program."