UPDATE, February 12:   Here’s a link to a White House press release showing everyone, including Ferdowsi, who will sit with the First Lady.

ORIGINAL STORY, February 11:  Bobak Ferdowsi, the Iranian-American NASA-JPL flight director made famous by the Mohawk haircut he sported at the landing of the Mars Curiosity rover in August, will have another moment in the limelight tomorrow night at the State of the Union address.   News sources say he will sit with First Lady Michelle Obama as President Obama highlights the need for more visas for science and engineering students.

Ferdowsi’s haircut, which he said was chosen by his team because he had a special haircut for every landing, made him a media sensation emblematic of a new NASA shedding its image of narrow black ties and white shirts.   Most recently he marched in the inaugural parade alongside a float with a replica of Curiosity.   JPL is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) operated for NASA by the California institute of Technology and is best known for building and operating most of NASA’s planetary exploration spacecraft.

In a story picked up by other media sources, Southern California Public Radio reported today that Ferdowsi will be one of the First Lady’s guests at the State of the Union address tomorrow night at the U.S. Capitol.  He will join Apple CEO Tim Cook and Medal of Honor recipient Clint Romesha and others as the First Lady’s guests.  Those media reports say he will be there to emphasize the need to allow more foreigners to enter the United States to earn degrees in science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) fields.  According to Wikipedia (the only place we could find biographical information about him), Ferdowsi is not foreign-born, however.   It says he was born in Philadelphia to a father who was Iranian, and spent part of his childhood in Japan.  

NASA is reassuring everyone that the asteroid that will pass close to Earth next week will not impact the planet.

The asteroid, 2012 DA14 will come as close as 17,200 miles from Earth’s surface, but scientists insist it does not threaten Earth.   Instead, it will pass between the orbits where GPS satellites circle the globe and the higher geostationary orbits that are home primarily to communications satellites.  NASA officials said at a press conference on Thursday that satellite operators have been notified, but no concern has been expressed so far.  The chance it would collide with a satellite is extremely remote.

The asteroid will pass by Earth on Friday, February 15.   NASA scientists said they do not know exactly what this asteroid is composed of, but believe that it is similar in size (45 meters, or 150 feet, in diameter) and composition to the asteroid  that entered Earth’s atmosphere in 1908 near the Tunguska River in Siberia.  The Tunguska asteroid exploded as it penetrated the lower layers of the atmosphere.   The resulting airburst flattened 800 square miles of forest.  

NASA’s scientists are confident, however, that 2012 DA14 will pass by harmlessly.    Also, Earth’s gravity field will perturb its orbit and make it even less likely that 2012 DA14 will pose a threat to Earth on subsequent passes.

The best place to see the asteroid flyby is Australia, but may also be visible in Eastern Europe and Asia, which will be in darkness.   It will not be visible to the naked eye.  The time of closest approach is during daylight in the United States, so cannot be seen from here at all.   Closest approach is at 2:24 pm Eastern Standard Time (11:24 am Pacific).   It will be in the Earth-Moon system for 33 hours.

NASA and others are conducting sky surveys to discover and catalog Near Earth Objects (NEOs)  — asteroids and comets — to determine which might pose a hazard to Earth.  Asteroids have been colliding with Earth throughout its history and many scientists believe that the after-effects of a major collision was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.   As the efforts to find asteroids intensifies and technology improves, smaller asteroids like 2012 DA14 are being found.   This one is interesting not because it poses a threat to the planet, but because it is the closest predicted Earth approach for an object this size.

A video of NASA’s February 7, 2013 press conference and a FAQ about the asteroid are available on NASA’s website.

John Naugle, one of the icons of NASA’s space science program, died of colon cancer on January 23 at his home in North Falmouth, MA.  He was 89.

Naugle was one of NASA’s first employees, joining the agency in 1958, the same year it opened its doors.  He rose to become Associate Administrator for the Office of Space Science, heading the agency’s space science program and NASA Chief Scientist.  After retiring from NASA, he was chairman of Fairchild Industries’ Fairchild Space Co. and later returned to NASA as a consultant to the NASA Administrator.

Naugle was renowned in space science circles.  Among his many accomplishments was writing First Among Equals: The Selection of NASA Space Science Experiments, published in 1991.  An obituary in the Washington Post details his personal life, including imprisonment as a prisoner of war in World War II after being captured in the Battle of the Bulge.

June Scobee Rogers, widow of space shuttle Challenger STS-51-L commander Dick Scobee, believes that the “greatest risk in space exploration is to take no risk.”

Rogers, the force behind the Challenger Center for Space Science Education that was created as a living tribute to the crew, spoke at the Smithsonian Institution’s Udvar-Hazy Center last night.  Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the space shuttle Columbia tragedy and the NASA Day of Remembrance 2013 that honors all the crews who lost their lives, including Challenger and the Apollo 1 crew. 

The panel discussion on “Caution and Boldness:  Balancing Risk in Spaceflight,” also featured Apollo astronaut Ken Mattingly, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA Public Outreach Alan Ladwig, and space historian Steve Dick.   Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin made a surprise guest appearance.  The webcast of the event is online (in two parts)

Rogers recounted a television interview soon after she and the other Challenger families decided to create the Challenger Center, which teaches science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education to students through hands-on exploration and discovery opportunities.  The reporter asked what the students would learn about risk.  She and Jane Smith, widow of Challenger pilot Mike Smith, had no reply and the interview ended “clumsily.”  

She decided that she would never be stumped by the question again and thought through the various types of risk and how to explain it to students.   The next time she was interviewed and asked about risk, she replied “without risk, there’s no new knowledge.  Without risk there’s no great discovery.   Without risk there is no bold adventure.  That’s what it’s about with human spaceflight.  Bold adventure helps the human spirit to soar.”   The interviewer then asked “what is the greatest risk.”  Her reply was “the greatest risk in space exploration is to take no risk.”

Alan Ladwig asked whether perceptions of risk will change with the advent of commercial human spaceflight.  There is a widespread presumption that companies will be less concerned about safety than NASA because they are more focused on business matters like profit.  Ladwig argued, however, that they will go out of business if passengers do not feel safe so the opposite is more likely.  Ken Mattingly, who was the command module pilot on Apollo 16 and commanded two space shuttle missions, asserted that risk needs to be managed, it cannot be avoided.  He told the story of talking with a Saturn V technician who was working on the very rocket that would soon take Mattingly to the Moon and who was skeptical that one could go to the Moon and return safely.   However, he told Mattingly that the mission “won’t fail because of me.”   As long as the people working on human spaceflight missions continue to feel that level of accountability, Mattingly believes risk is being well managed.

“Exploration is what great nations do” throughout history, according to Steve Dick.  However, “history is not prescriptive”  and the “lessons of history are never learned.”  He compared the great Age of Discovery in the 15th-16th centuries versus today and said that little was done to manage risk in the Age of Discovery, while today’s era of exploration is characterized by risk aversion.  The policy challenge, he said, is to find the balance between caution and boldness.  Safety will always be the second priority in any bold adventure, he said, because the first priority is simply to go — or there would be no exploration.

Buzz Aldrin, who earlier in the day participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, was a surprise guest at the event and used the occasion to make the case for one-way human trips to Mars.   He reasons that the people who make the arduous journey to Mars should stay there, not return home.  “What are they going to do when they come back,” he asked.  “Are they going to retire?  We made a big investment in getting them there and they know what it’s like to be there.  I think their best service to themselves and the nation and the world is to stay there and build up the sustainability that is really needed.”  He said that he uses the word “permanence” as the objective, not “one-way trip” adding that “the Pilgrims on the Mayflower didn’t hang around Plymouth Rock waiting for the return trip.”

President Barack Obama issued a statement today honoring the memories of astronauts who lost their lives in space exploration and asserted that the United Stated will continue to “lead the world” in space.

Today is NASA’s Day of Remembrance 2013 honoring the crews of Apollo 1 (AS-204), Challenger (STS 51-L) and Columbia (STS-107) who perished.

The President said the crews gaves their lives “in the pursuit of expanding our Nation’s horizons in space — a cause worthy of their sacrifice and one we must never forget.”   Referring to both robotic and human space missions, he asserted that “it’s imperative that America continues to lead the world in reaching for the stars while giving us a better understanding of our home planet.”  Noting the work now underway to build systems to take humans “beyond the Moon” and that “will eventually put humans on Mars,” the President said that as the country honors the lost crews we should “recommit ourselves to living up their shining example.”

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and others laid wreaths today at Arlington National Cemetery at the memorials to the Challenger and Columbia crews and at least one individual gravesite.  There is no memorial to the Apollo 1 crew, but Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee are buried there.  (The cemetery has a list of all the astronauts buried on site.)   

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin salutes while NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden looks on at

Photo:  Bill Ingalls, NASA

A memorial event was held by NASA and the Astronauts Memorial Foundation at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Visitor Complex’s Space Mirror Memorial this morning.   Evelyn Husband-Thompson, widow of STS-107 Commander Rick Husband, recalled the events 10 years ago today when her husband and his six crewmates died as space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over East Texas 16 minutes before they were to touch down at KSC after a successful 16-day science mission.  

She has written a book, High Calling, about her first husband (she is now remarried).   She praised the people of East Texas who retrieved the remnants of Columbia and her crew, thanking them for their graciousness and hospitality.   Just as a fire reduces a forest to ashes, she said, the ashes become “nourishment for new shoots.” She ended with the hope that “may our broken hearts continue to heal and may beauty continue to replace the ashes.”

NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Bill Gerstenmaier spoke eloquently about the “tremendous responsibility” of flying people in space and how the Columbia tragedy was not caused “by a single event or a single person” but resulted from a series of “technical and cultural missteps” dating back to the first space shuttle flight in 1981 when NASA first discovered that pieces of foam had come off the External Tank and struck the orbiter.   Columbia was destroyed 22 years later when a piece of foam hit Columbia’s wing and punctured it, allowing superheated gases to enter the wing during reentry from orbit.   The wing deformed creating aerodynamic forces that tore the orbiter apart.

Gerstenmaier said “we didn’t stay hungry” during all the years of shuttle flights and look at what would happen if foam was released at just the wrong moment.  The challenge is to “stay vigilant” and recognize that the smallest flaw can become a big problem.  It would have been easy to pull back from exploration, he continued, but “we can’t be afraid of risk and we can’t be ignorant of it either.”   He reminded the audience that on that day 10 years ago he was the International Space Station program manager and two Americans and a Russian were on ISS (Ken Bowersox, Don Pettit and Nikolai Budarin), still under construction at the time.  He and his team had to “separate ourselves from the tragedy,” as difficult as that was, and ensure the safety of the ISS crew.   He said the ISS itself is a tribute to the Columbia crew today, where crews conduct scientific research in space just as they did.

The Senate passed a resolution (S. Res. 24) commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Columbia tragedy as well.

Today is the NASA Day of Remembrance 2013 honoring the astronauts who lost their lives in spaceflights.   The day honors the crews of Apollo 1 (AS-204), Challenger (STS-51L) and Columbia (STS-107).  Today is the 10th anniversary of the loss of Columbia.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver will lay wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery this morning and an event will be held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex beginning at 10:00 am ET.  NASA TV will cover the KSC event.

The day honors the three-man crew of Apollo 1 (AS-204) who died in a fire in their Apollo capsule during a pre-launch test on January 27, 1967.  Pictured below left to right:  Ed White, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, and Roger Chaffee.  They were to be the first crew of the first Apollo mission.  Photo: NASA.

The crew of space shuttle Challenger (STS-51L) who died when their space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff because an O-ring failed on a solid rocket booster on January 28, 1986.  Pictured below left to right: front row – Mike Smith (NASA), Dick Scobee (NASA), Ron McNair (NASA); back row – Ellison Onizuka (NASA), Christa McAuliffe (teacher in space), Greg Jarvis (Hughes Aircraft), Judy Resnik (NASA).  Photo: NASA

The crew of space shuttle Columbia (STS-107), who died when their shuttle disintegrated during its return to Earth on February 1, 2003 when superheated gases entered the shuttle’s wing through a hole punctured in it by a piece of foam that came off the External Tank during launch. Pictured below left to right: David Brown (NASA), Rick Husband (NASA), Laurel Clark (NASA), Kalpana Chawla (NASA), Michael Anderson (NASA), William McCool (NASA), Ilan Ramon (Israeli Air Force). Photo: NASA.