Jan 15 2013

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 13-018 - NASA ISSUES 2013 CALL FOR VISIONARY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS --WASHINGTON -- NASA's Space Technology Program is looking for visionary advanced concepts. This year's annual call for NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program (NIAC) is seeking proposals for revolutionary concepts with the potential to transform future aerospace missions. Proposed concepts should enable new missions or significantly improve current approaches to achieve aerospace objectives. NIAC studies visionary aerospace architecture, system or mission concepts that are exciting and unexplored, yet credible and executable. The concepts are early in development -- generally 10 years or more from operation. They are chosen based on peer review of the potential impact, technical strength and benefits of the proposed study. While Goddard or Tsiolkovsky envisioned rockets taking humans to space, the rest of the world focused on the industrial revolution and challenges of the early 20th century, said Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space Technology Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "These visionaries had radical ideas of space travel and exploration that would take dozens to hundreds of years for maturation, but were worth waiting for. NASA's NIAC seeks proposals from today's visionaries who have futuristic concepts that may transform how we live, work and explore the high frontier." NIAC's current portfolio includes multiple technology areas contributing to innovations in revolutionary construction, human systems, sensing or imaging, autonomous exploration, and aerospace transportation. Past NIAC Phase I proposals have included a broad range of imaginative and creative ideas, including: using electromagnets to protect spacecraft from radiation; the application of terrestrial ocean exploring concepts for extremely low-power exploration of under-ice oceans believed to be on Europa; printing entire spacecraft on sheets of paper; a solid-state, no-moving-parts air purifier; and other innovative propulsion and power concepts needed for future space mission operations. The NIAC Phase I solicitation will incorporate a two-step process. NIAC will accept short proposals, limited to three pages, until Feb. 14. After review, NASA will invite those whose proposal concepts are of interest to the agency to submit a full proposal of no more than eight pages. Full proposals will be due April 18. NASA expects to fund about 15 proposals in this year's Phase I process. Those selected may receive up to $100,000 for nine months of study to advance the innovative space technology concept and help NASA meet current operational and future mission requirements. Selection announcements are expected this summer. The solicitation is open to all United States citizens and researchers working in the U.S., including NASA civil servants. The number of NIAC awards will depend on the strength of proposals and availability of appropriated funds. This NASA early investment and partnership with creative scientists, engineers and citizen inventors will pay huge technological dividends and help maintain America's leadership in the global technology economy. NIAC is part of NASA's Space Technology Program, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA's future missions.

RELEASE: 13-021 - NASA FINDS 2012 SUSTAINED LONG-TERM CLIMATE WARMING TREND --WASHINGTON -- NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis Tuesday that compares temperatures around the globe in 2012 to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature in 2012 was about 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 Celsius), which is 1.0 F (0.6 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F (0.8 C) since 1880, according to the new analysis. Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperature from year to year, but the continued increase in greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere assures a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but on the current course of greenhouse gas increases, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous decade. One more year of numbers isn't in itself significant, GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. "What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it's warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere." Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat and largely controls Earth's climate. It occurs naturally and also is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Driven by increasing man-made emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has been rising consistently for decades. The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, the first year in the GISS temperature record. By 1960, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, measured at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory, was about 315 parts per million. Today, that measurement exceeds 390 parts per million. While the globe experienced relatively warm temperatures in 2012, the continental U.S. endured its warmest year on record by far, according to NOAA, the official keeper of U.S. weather records. The U.S. temperatures in the summer of 2012 are an example of a new trend of outlying seasonal extremes that are warmer than the hottest seasonal temperatures of the mid-20th century, GISS director James E. Hansen said. "The climate dice are now loaded. Some seasons still will be cooler than the long-term average, but the perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet." The temperature analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1,000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea-surface temperature, and Antarctic research station measurements. A publicly available computer program is used to calculate the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same place during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period functions as a baseline for the analysis. The last year that experienced cooler temperatures than the 1951 to 1980 average was 1976. The GISS temperature record is one of several global temperature analyses, along with those produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. These three primary records use slightly different methods, but overall, their trends show close agreement.

RELEASE: 13-022 - NASA MARS ROVER PREPARING TO DRILL INTO FIRST MARTIAN ROCK --PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is driving toward a flat rock with pale veins that may hold clues to a wet history on the Red Planet. If the rock meets rover engineers' approval when Curiosity rolls up to it in coming days, it will become the first to be drilled for a sample during the Mars Science Laboratory mission. The size of a car, Curiosity is inside Mars' Gale Crater investigating whether the planet ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life. Curiosity landed in the crater five months ago to begin its two-year prime mission. Drilling into a rock to collect a sample will be this mission's most challenging activity since the landing. It has never been done on Mars, said Mars Science Laboratory project manager Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "The drill hardware interacts energetically with Martian material we don't control. We won't be surprised if some steps in the process don't go exactly as planned the first time through." Curiosity first will gather powdered samples from inside the rock and use those to scrub the drill. Then the rover will drill and ingest more samples from this rock, which it will analyze for information about its mineral and chemical composition. The chosen rock is in an area where Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) and other cameras have revealed diverse unexpected features, including veins, nodules, cross-bedded layering, a lustrous pebble embedded in sandstone, and possibly some holes in the ground. The rock chosen for drilling is called "John Klein" in tribute to former Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager John W. Klein, who died in 2011. John's leadership skill played a crucial role in making Curiosity a reality, said Cook. The target is on flat-lying bedrock within a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." The terrain in this area differs from that of the landing site, a dry streambed about a third of a mile (about 500 meters) to the west. Curiosity's science team decided to look there for a first drilling target because orbital observations showed fractured ground that cools more slowly each night than nearby terrain types do. The orbital signal drew us here, but what we found when we arrived has been a great surprise, said Mars Science Laboratory project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "This area had a different type of wet environment than the streambed where we landed, maybe a few different types of wet environments." One line of evidence comes from inspection of light-toned veins with Curiosity's laser-pulsing Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, which found elevated levels of calcium, sulfur and hydrogen. These veins are likely composed of hydrated calcium sulfate, such as bassinite or gypsum, said ChemCam team member Nicolas Mangold of the Laboratoire de Planetologie et Geodynamique de Nantes in France. "On Earth, forming veins like these requires water circulating in fractures." Researchers have used the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to examine sedimentary rocks in the area. Some are sandstone, with grains up to about peppercorn size. One grain has an interesting gleam and bud-like shape that have brought it Internet buzz as a "Martian flower." Other rocks nearby are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These differ significantly from pebbly conglomerate rocks in the landing area. All of these are sedimentary rocks, telling us Mars had environments actively depositing material here, said MAHLI deputy principal investigator Aileen Yingst of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz. "The different grain sizes tell us about different transport conditions." JPL manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

RELEASE: 13-023 - NASA PARTICIPATES IN PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL ACTIVITIES JAN. 18-21 --WASHINGTON -- NASA will participate in the inauguration of President Obama with several events, including an open house, a star party and a NASA Social; exhibits on the National Mall and at NASA Headquarters; and with two floats and marchers in the inaugural parade. During the events Jan. 18 - 21, members of the public will have an opportunity to meet and mingle with several astronauts and members of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory team responsible for the Curiosity rover, which is five months into a two-year mission on the Red Planet. Jan. 18: NASA will open the doors of its headquarters at 300 E St. SW in Washington to the general public for an open house from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST Friday. Members of the public are invited to interact with NASA's leadership in two panel discussions, from 10 a.m. to noon and 2-4 p.m., in the James Webb Auditorium. Topics to be covered in the sessions are NASA's plans for the future of human spaceflight; the importance of technology innovation to our future; science on the International Space Station; and NASA's ongoing and future missions to Mars; and a demonstration of NASA's exoskeleton. The panelists will include current members of NASA's astronaut corps and senior NASA leadership. Guests must enter the building through the West Lobby, where they will see a variety of displays highlighting NASA's work, including aeronautics research and NASA missions to Mars. The West Lobby is located near the intersection of 4th and E streets SW. In conjunction with the open house, a group of 75 social media users who follow NASA on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ were selected to visit NASA Headquarters for in-depth, behind-the scenes briefings from astronauts and agency leaders. Active social media users were selected at random from those who registered online to attend this NASA Social. Jan. 19: NASA will join other federal agencies for a National Day of Service on the National Mall in Washington from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Visitors to NASA's exhibit will meet and mingle with astronauts and learn about the numerous opportunities available for members of the public to engage directly with NASA programs. NASA's tent will be on the Mall between 14th St., and the 12th St., expressway underpass, in the Education Section. Below are the appearance times for NASA's astronauts: 10 a.m.-noon Kjell Lindgren and Serena Aunon 12:30-2:30 p.m. Lee Morin and Kate Rubins 3-5 p.m. Mike Massimino and Alvin Drew NASA will host a Star Party at the Arlington Planetarium in Arlington, Va., from 5:30 - 9:30 p.m. Saturday as part of inaugural activities. Telescopes will be provided for the public to star gaze, and astronomers, NASA astronauts and other experts will be on hand to talk about current NASA missions and the future of space exploration. Planetarium shows will also be offered, with limited, reserved seating. The event is free and open to the public, and tickets are not required for the star gazing part of the event. Jan. 21: NASA will participate in Monday's Inaugural Parade with full-size models of two spacecraft that are boosting America to new heights -- the Curiosity Mars rover and Orion, the multi-purpose capsule that will take our astronauts farther into space than ever. Walking beside the two spacecraft and greeting spectators along the parade route will be members of the Curiosity team from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and several current and former astronauts. The participating astronauts are Alvin Drew, Serena Aunon, Kate Rubins, Mike Massimino, Lee Morin and Kjell Lindgren, as well as Leland Melvin, NASA's associate administrator for Education, and John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for Science.