Space Science

Commuters are bracing for a difficult trip around southwest Connecticut and to New York City beginning Monday as workers repair the Metro-North commuter rail line crippled by a derailment and crash.
Commuters are bracing for a difficult trip around southwest Connecticut and to New York City beginning Monday as workers repair the Metro-North commuter rail line crippled by a derailment and crash.
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Some lucky person walked into a Publix supermarket in suburban Florida over the past few days and bought a ticket now worth an estimated $590.5 million — the highest Powerball jackpot in history.
Some lucky person walked into a Publix supermarket in suburban Florida over the past few days and bought a ticket now worth an estimated $590.5 million — the highest Powerball jackpot in history.
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See space crafts photos, homemade tech and more from the Maker Faire Bay Area in May 2013.
See space crafts photos, homemade tech and more from the Maker Faire Bay Area in May 2013.
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Speaking at the meeting Wednesday of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) in Washington, NASA administrator Charles Bolden made another pitch—this time to a rather sympathetic audience—for the agen...
Speaking at the meeting Wednesday of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) in Washington, NASA administrator Charles Bolden made another pitch—this time to a rather sympathetic audience—for the agency’s commercial crew program. “If NASA had received the president’s requested funding for this program then,” Bolden said, referring to the rollout of the program three years ago, “we would not have been forced to recently sign a new contract with the Russians for Soyuz transportation.” Those earlier cuts, he said, have pushed back commercial crew to 2017, “and even this delayed availability is in question if Congress does not fully support the president’s 2014 request for our commercial crew program.” “Further delays in our commercial crew program and the impact on our human spaceflight program are unacceptable,” he said. “That’s why we need the full $821 million the president has requested in next year’s budget to keep us on track for our 2017 deadline.” The commercial crew program has frequently been seen as being in conflict with the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket and Orion spacecraft for limited funding, particularly in the eyes of some members of Congress who think NASA is favoring commercial crew in favor of SLS and Orion. “The either-or debate exists one place that I know of, and that’s in the Congress,” he said. “And it is a a false debate that is built on my inability to convince critical members of Congress” that both commercial crew and SLS/Orion are essential aspects of NASA’s long-term plans. “The argument that it’s either heavy lift or commercial crew is a fallacious one.” After Bolden completed his talk and left, COMSTAC heard a different take on commercial crew from Capitol Hill. “I think there’s been some frustration on the Hill at how the commercial crew program over the last few years has unfolded,” said Tom Culligan, legislative director for Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA. “There wasn’t a clear vision and path and strategy laid out from day one, with buy-in from the Hill and with the stakeholders in the community, about how we were going to proceed on this program.” That frustration, Culligan suggested, is because NASA hasn’t moved fast enough to select a company to develop a crew transportation system. “I think the decision early on to try and spread resources for crew to low Earth orbit to as many people as possible maybe wasn’t the best decision,” he said. “The Congress did not buy off on a program to provide development subsidies to a large number of entities out there. They bought off on a program to get American astronauts to low Earth orbit and Station as quickly as possible and as affordably as possible. And I think there was a disconnect there, maybe, between what people at NASA’s priorities were and Congress’s understanding of priorities were.” “I don’t think today you find people on Capitol Hill who say we shouldn’t have this program, the way you did a few years ago,” he continued, but that there was “bipartisan concern” about how it’s being run. “I think you’ve got some people who are upset, maybe, at how the program was run, particularly the first couple of years. But now we’re all in it, we need to resolve it, we need to have that ability as quickly as possible.” As for Bolden’s call for funding commercial crew at the requested level in 2014, Culligan did not sound optimistic. “Say, overnight, there was 100-percent consensus that we wanted to fund this at the President’s level. I’m not sure the resources are there. I don’t know where you find $300 million and cha
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President Obama took a break from the trifecta of controversies—IRS, Benghazi, Department of Justice—swirling around the White House on Sunday to deliver the commencement at Morehouse College, the historically black, all-male institution...
President Obama took a break from the trifecta of controversies—IRS, Benghazi, Department of Justice—swirling around the White House on Sunday to deliver the commencement at Morehouse College, the historically black, all-male institution in Atlanta.
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- Supporters of a hardline Islamist group clashed with Tunisian police in two cities on Sunday after the government banned its annual rally and the regional arm of al Qaeda urged it to stand firm against the authorities.
- Supporters of a hardline Islamist group clashed with Tunisian police in two cities on Sunday after the government banned its annual rally and the regional arm of al Qaeda urged it to stand firm against the authorities.
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Prepared Statement by Wayne "Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed the space shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraf...
Prepared Statement by Wayne "Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed the space shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraft development program in the name of saving a few pennies for today's budget bottom line resulting in the compromised systems that, if they fly at all, will not be cheap enough to enable business in space." - Prepared Statement by Steven Collicott - Prepared Statement by Patti Grace Smith - Prepared Statement by Michael Lopez-Alegria
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By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels on Sunday, the heaviest fighting yet involving Lebanese armed group, opposition...
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels on Sunday, the heaviest fighting yet involving Lebanese armed group, opposition activists said. At least 32 people were killed when rebel fighters clashed with mechanized Syrian army units and Hezbollah guerillas in nine points in and around the town of Qusair, 10 km (six miles) from the border with Lebanon's Bekaa valley, they said. ...
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The president and CEO of The Associated Press says the government's seizure of AP journalists' phone records was "unconstitutional" and already has had a chilling effect on newsgathering.
The president and CEO of The Associated Press says the government's seizure of AP journalists' phone records was "unconstitutional" and already has had a chilling effect on newsgathering.
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Seeing our fragile Earth hanging alone in space could inspire people to take the long view.
Seeing our fragile Earth hanging alone in space could inspire people to take the long view.
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