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bjbj< This Week at NASA The counter is zero, it has passed closet approach and this asteroid
is going away, it s on its way out!!) It may have been small, appearing so even in the
best optical telescopes on Earth, but the flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 was anything but
a minor event to astronomers. Never feared as a threat to anyone or anything on or around
our planet, DA14, about the size of half a football field, did come within 17-thousand
miles of Earth, about 5-thousand miles closer than many of our satellites in geosynchronous
orbit. And that gave astronomers and scientists something to see and learn about, relatively
up close. It will be observed by observatories around the world, and we ll get a lot of good
information on its spectral type, chemical composition possibly, spectrum of it, and
the radar data will give us essential information on the shape, size and rotation. During Tuesday
s State of the Union, President Obama reaffirmed the Administration s commitment to inspire
the next generation of innovators and empower them with the STEM skills needed to take our
nation into the future. ll reward schools that develop new partnerships with colleges
and employers, and create classes that focus on science, technology, engineering and math
-- the skills today s employers are looking for to fill the jobs that are there right
now and will be there in the future. Watching the president as a guest of First Lady Michelle
Obama was Curiosity rover team member, Bobak Ferdowsi better known in social media circles
as Mohawk Guy. Watching him work during coverage of Curiosity s landing on Mars has increased
STEM cool factor among young Americans. On the heels of the president s address, NASA
participated in several White House events aimed at interesting young minds in science,
technology and space. Administrator Charlie Bolden was joined by Ferdowsi to connect with
students at a Tweet-and-Chat session. And NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and
Ferdowsi spoke at a STEM Q&A with middle and high school students. Being able to make discoveries
is what exploration is all about, being able to learn things that we have not learned before
that benefit humanity and society and advance our civilization and NASA is a place from
the vantage point of space where we can do that. We just did a first drill on Mars within
the last week, and that s actually kind of the real cool part of this mission, we are
actually going to get into the history of Mars, not just the surface of Mars, this has
been, you know that has radiation and weathering and everything else. We are actually going
to see that preserved Martian history and I think that s when the really cool stuff
is going to start showing up. Hi I'm Scott McCloskey, drill systems engineer on the Mars
Science Laboratory and this is your Curiosity rover report. Curiosity made history this
week by being the first rover to ever drill on another planet. We began our first drilling
campaign at the site we named John Klein. John Klein has an area that has a set of flat
plate rocks that are perfect for the first use of the drill. We were able to place the
arm safely and drill vertically down into the rock to collect as much sample as possible.
We were very cautious leading up to o our first use of the drill. We started by making
a very small divot to test the hammering mechanism in the drill. This worked perfectly so we
continued on with the making of the mini hole. The mini hole was 2 centimeters deep and allowed
us to examined the tailings that the drill created by boring into the rock When we looked
at those we compared the tailings created by the mini drill to the extensive set of
test rocks that we drilled here on earth here at JPL and determine that the we see on mars
are safe to ingest in the system. After these drill tests we were all very excited to move
on to ready to move on to the big event finally drilling a full hole and collecting sample
We drilled 6 and a half centimeters down into the rock and collected sample. After drilling
the first hole we used the camera at the end of the arm to take pictures. Here we see two
holes first on the right is the mini drill hole (stumble) and in the center of the picture
we have the full hole. Both of these holes generated grey tailings (stumble) the grey
tailings tells us that there s something different about the inside of this rock than the surface
of the rock. the drill collected some of this grey powder and we used it to clean the internal
surfaces of the drill we also then processed that sample and will use it to deliver to
the other instruments. After using this powder to clean the drill we move it into the scoop
and take a picture. This allows us to estimate how much sample the drill actually collected.
In the coming weeks we ll process this sample and deliver it to the instruments inside of
the rover. That's your Curiosity rover report, check back for more updates. At their latest
test in Yuma, Arizona, Orion engineers demonstrated that the spacecraft can land safely if one
of the crew capsule s three main chutes fails to inflate during deployment. Before dropping
the test article from a plane 25,000 feet above the desert, engineers rigged the parachutes
so only two would work properly. The results are significant because Orion s chute system
will perform like no other landing system has done before: slow a spacecraft carrying
humans from a 20-thousand mile-per-hour reentry into Earth's atmosphere to a speed gentle
enough for a safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. This was the eighth drop test for Orion
s chute system. The next is scheduled for May. Data from NASA's twin Gravity Recovery
and Climate Experiment, or GRACE satellites indicates that freshwater reserves in large
areas of the arid Middle East were rapidly depleted during the past decade. Scientists
found that between 2003 and 2009, the Tigris and Euphrates river basins of Turkey, Syria,
Iraq and Iran lost 117 million-acre-feet of the total freshwater stored there. That s
almost as much H2O as in the Dead Sea. Researchers say about 60 percent of the loss was groundwater
pumped from underground reservoirs. Political tensions in the area limit how much ground-based
data can be collected, so satellite data from GRACE and other Earth-observing spacecraft
are essential to monitoring our home planet s water systems. NASA Ames recently started
a new partnership with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to study air pollution
in the San Francisco Bay region. Using a specially equipped aircraft called the Alpha Jet Atmospheric
Experiment or AJAX, the project will sample ozone and greenhouse gas levels at altitudes
as low as 1,000 feet. The study hopes to better understand how clean air over the Pacific
Ocean moves into northern California and how pollution emissions develop and move on a
broad scale. The goal is to help Air District planners and meteorologists better forecast
and simulate air pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area. Between 2017 and 2019 NASA and other
partners plan to launch satellites that are designed to study air quality, so projects
like this Bay Area study will help scientists to make more refined measurements in the future.
The AJAX project is also working with other partners to gather data in support of other
air quality projects in California and the nearby Pacific region. The Robotic Refueling
Mission successfully completed a first-of-its-kind demonstration on the International Space Station.
Engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center oversaw the operations as controllers at the
Johnson Space Center remotely commanded the station's robotic arm called Dextre to transfer
simulated fuel into a specially designed practice box. It s an important step in proving the
feasibility of using robots to refuel satellites in space. Robotics can do things that humans
can t do in terms of precision, control holding a spot for six hours while engineers on the
ground debate out what to do. We can t ask a human to do that. NASA will continue development
of technology to enable robots to refuel satellites on orbit even those not designed to be serviced,
with additional tests throughout the year. NASA Astronaut Serena Aunon, a 1997 graduate
of George Washington University s School of Engineering and Applied Science, was back
at GW to share her path to the astronaut corps with those considering following in her footsteps.
You have to make sure that you have good team dynamics. That you know how to be both a leader
and a follower, that you work well across multiple cultures. Because on the International
Space Station we have astronauts from Russia, obviously the United States, Canada, Europe
and Japan. Aunon, who holds an electrical engineering degree from GW, is also an experienced
NASA Flight Surgeon, and currently serves as the medical/education branch chief for
the Astronaut Office. Aunon was one of 14 people selected by NASA in 2009 for the agency
s 20th astronaut class. My name is Terry Edmonds. I m a senior advisor and speechwriter for
Charlie Bolden and Lori Garver and I ve been here at NASA for about a year-and-a-half.
At an early age I just fell in love with literature and writing and poetry. We didn t have a lot
of money but one thing that my mother made sure we had was a series of classic books.
Growing up I never imagined that the trajectory of my life would take me to the places that
I ve been and becoming the first African-American to write speeches for an American president
is definitely a source of pride. You have produced some of our nation s finest leaders.
He was the first President to deliver a commencement address, I believe at an HBCU, Historically
Black College and University, which happened to be my Alma Mater, Morgan State University.
Unbeknownst to me I did not write it into the speech he pointed me out. And on a very
personal note, my fine assistant Terry Edmonds, Class of 1972 the first African-American ever
to serve as a speechwriter for the President of the United States. And that was quite a
moment of pride and, yeah, satisfaction. I would advise anyone who s trying to go into
speechwriting to write for somebody or for some cause or for some issue that you actually
believe in. I feel like I really, you know hit the jackpot when I came to NASA. When
the opportunity presented itself, everybody kept telling me, hey man, that s a cool place.
That s the coolest place to go. s a great place, great leadership, great camaraderie.
It s very challenging work that we do here. I believe that we should have workplaces that,
quote/unquote look like America. America is becoming more diverse and the talents of all
of our people are going to be necessary if we re going to move forward in the twenty-first
century. February 18, 1977: NASA s first space shuttle orbiter, Enterprise, conducted its
first flight test at the Dryden Flight Research Center. Constructed without an engine, the
craft was mounted atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft to measure structural loads,
ground handling and other capabilities prior to atmospheric flight. While Enterprise never
flew in space, its series of approach and landing tests that year proved the orbiter
could fly in the atmosphere and land like a glider. Enterprise was named for the starship
on the popular television series of that time Star Trek. Today, you can see Enterprise on
display at New York City s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum Complex. 3-2-1 And February
20th is the fifty-first anniversary of John Glenn s historic flight aboard Friendship
7. Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, circling the globe three times.
As he passed over Perth, Western Australia, residents there turned on house lights and
street lights, earning Perth the nickname, The City of Light . Despite some tense moments
near the end of the 4 hour- 55 minute Mercury mission, when flight controllers could not
determine if its heat shield was intact, the capsule returned to Earth safely. Glenn was
celebrated as a national hero and given a ticker-tape parade in New York City. And that
s This Week @NASA. For more on these and other stories, or to follow us on YouTube, UStream
and other social media, log on to HYPERLINK "http://www.nasa.gov" www.nasa.gov PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT
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