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

wreath laying ceremony on NASA’s Day of Remembrance, February 1, 2013.

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.

NASA will hold a workshop at Marshall Space Flight Center next week to discuss concepts for using the two large space telescopes it inherited from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) last year.   NRO transferred the telescopes to NASA at no cost, but NASA must come up with the money for spacecraft to put them in and related systems, as well as launch costs.

The Study on Applications for Large Space Objects (SALSO) workshop will be held February 5-6, 2013 and features as many as 34 presentations from industry, academia and government on potential uses for the telescopes.  Up to six concepts will be selected for further study at Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA revealed the existence of the gift from NRO last summer.   By all accounts, the telescopes are excellent pieces of hardware that astrophysicists would love to utilize, the problem is money.   Cost overruns on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have consumed a large portion of NASA’s astrophysics budget and until it is launched in 2018, starting new large space astronomy projects is not feasible.  

The National Research Council sets priorities for NASA’s astrophysics programs through the Decadal Survey process.  The most recent Decadal Survey in astrophysics, issued in 2010, identified a Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) as the top priority for the next large space mission.   JWST cost overruns pushed significant work on WFIRST out to the latter part of the decade.  One question is whether these NRO telescopes could be used to achieve WFIRST science objectives at reduced cost.

The SALSO workshop will be broadcast on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc.

UPDATE, January 30, 2013:  President Obama signed the bill into law last night.

ORIGINAL STORY, January 29, 2013: Exactly one month after it initially passed legislation to help victims of Hurricane Sandy, yesterday the Senate voted to approve similar legislation, clearing the measure to be sent to the President and signed into law.   At that point NASA will be due $15 million and NOAA about $500 million.

The Senate passed a $60.4 billion aid bill on December 28, 2012, but the House did not consider it during the closing days of the 112th Congress. The process had to begin anew for the 113th Congress.  

The House split the bill into two parts, passing one (P.L. 113-1) on January 4 and the second (H.R. 152) on January 15.  Together the bills provide just about the same amount of funding as the original Senate bill, including the money for NASA and NOAA (NOAA’s money is not directly targeted for satellite programs, however).  The NASA funds are for NASA “facilities damaged by Hurricane Sandy,” a reference apparently to Wallops Flight Facility on the coast of Virginia and Kennedy Space Center in Florida though they are not specified.

The Senate has been in recess for most of mid-January, so yesterday was the first opportunity to pass the House version.  The measure has not yet been sent to the President for signature, but he is expected to sign it when it reaches his desk.

The House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee has a robust oversight agenda for the 113th Congress, including NASA’s aeronautics and space activities, NOAA’s satellite programs, and FAA’s aeronautics R&D program and its Office of Commercial Space Transportation.

The committee’s 113th Congress Oversight Plan lays out the key issues it will monitor over the next two years.  Of its six subcommittees, three plan to keep an eye on NASA, NOAA and FAA.

The Space subcommittee will monitor the broadest range of these issues.  Human spaceflight program is at the top of the list.  The committee asserts that “NASA has not clearly articulated what types of future human space flight missions it wishes to pursue, or their rationale.”  It plans to “further review … costs associated with cancellation of the Constellation program, NASA’s approach to develop and fund a successor to the Space Shuttle, and investment in NASA launch infrastructure.”  It also plans to examine the “feasibility of NASA’s plans and priorities relative to their resources and requirements.”   A recent National Research Council report concluded that the current plan to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 is not “widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA’s own workforce, by the nation as a whole or by the international community.”

Other topics on the Space subcommittee’s list include oversight of:

• FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation and “the progress of the emerging personal space flight industry, as well as the challenges it faces”;
• NASA’s space science programs, particularly executing them within cost and schedule;
• NASA’s COTS program and the ability of those commercial providers to meet NASA’s requirements to deliver cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS);
• NASA’s plans for operating and utilizing ISS;
• NASA’s aeronautics program and its ability to support the interagency effort to modernize the air traffic management system as well as conduct long-term R&D;
• NASA’s contract and financial management efforts; and
• NASA’s compliance with congressional direction relating to Near Earth Objects.

The Environment subcommittee will monitor “NASA’s efforts to prioritize, plan and implement Earth science missions within cost and schedule.”  It will also “examine the impact of large increases in funding for the Earth Science Division relative to funding requested for other science disciplines.”   Earth science was a top priority of NASA’s science programs in the early years of the Obama Administration, although budget realities dashed some of those hopes beginning with the FY2012 budget.   That budget — which is the basis for NASA’s spending right now under the Continuing Resolution — funds Earth Science at $1.76 billion.  By comparison, planetary science is $1.50 billion, astrophysics (combining the James Webb Space Telescope with the rest of NASA’s astrophysics activities) is $1.19 billion, and heliophysics is $620.50 million.

The Oversight subcommittee includes monitoring NOAA’s satellite modernization effort on its list.  “The restructured Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) will continue to draw the Committee’s attention, as will the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites and the broader issues of research-to-operations planning and data continuity.”   It also plans oversight of “critical minerals, materials, and isotopes” including plutonium-238 (Pu-238).   NASA is working with the Department of Energy (DOE) to restart production of Pu-238, which is needed for radioisotope power sources used to provide electrical power and heat for spacecraft that cannot rely on solar panels because they are traveling too far from the Sun or will be on lunar/planetary surfaces where sunlight is not always available.

NOTE:   the archived video is at this website.

The Baker Institute at Rice University is hosting a panel discussion tonight, January 24, 2013, entitled “Lost in Space:  Need for a Definitive U.S. Space Policy.”    The event will be webcast.

The speaker’s list is a who’s who of space policy and science policy experts, including two who served in the White House under President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton, respectively. 

It is from 5:30-7:30 pm Central Time (6:30-8:30 pm Eastern) and should be very interesting.   Details and a link to the webcast are on the event’s website.   Speakers are:

• Mark Albrecht, chairman of the board of U.S. Space LLC and former executive director of the White House National Space Council under President George H. W. Bush.  Author of Falling Back to Earth:  A First Hand Account of the Great Space Race and the End of the Cold War.
• Leroy Chiao, former astronaut, adjunct professor at Rice University, and chair of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute’s user panel.  Chiao was a member of the 2009 Augustine Committee.
• Joan Johnson-Freese, professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College.  Author most recently of Heavenly Ambitions:  America’s Quest to Dominate Space and has written extensively about China’s space program.
• Neal Lane, senior fellow in science and technology at Rice University, former presidential science adviser to President BIll Clinton, and former director of the National Science Foundation.
• Eugene Levy, Andrew Hays Buchanan Professor of Astrophysics at Rice University and a renowned space scientist.
• John Logsdon, professor emeritus, George Washington University, founder and former director of the Space Policy Institute and a renowned space historian.  Author most recently of John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon.

Neil deGrasse Tyson will address the first meeting of the new House Science & National Labs Caucus today at noon in Washington, D.C.   Caucus co-chair Rep. Randy Hultgren’s office says the event will not be webcast or livestreamed, but for those of you who wish you could be there, it will be on YouTube afterwards. 

Not sure how long that will take, but check there after 1:00 pm ET.  (We’ll post the link once there is one.)