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Welcome to Spacevidcast 4.02 for Friday February 04, 2011.
Last week I said 2010. Cariann: Did you? Ben: Oh yeah and I got yelled at on YouTube
Cariann: And you didn't notice? Ben: I didn't notice either. I didn't notice until they yelled at me.
Both on YouTube and Spacevidcast comments.
I was like "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's 2011. It's 2011."
You can tell from the new graphics.
My name is Benjamin Higginbotham.
With as always is the beautiful, lovely, wonderful and talented Cariann Higginbotham.
We have got an action packed EPICsode for you tonight.
There is a lot of stuff going on. There is a lot of really great news
coming out of a bunch of different places. We've got a lot of ESA and European
news stories in this particular episode.
So everyone that's not from America that is constantly yelling at us
"HEY WE WANT MORE STORIES FROM ESA!"
This is your show.
And if you didn't know that you could check out our Wiki.
In fact check this out: You've got all the possible stories for this episode.
Two-thirds of them. Look at this.
All of [the blue highlighted area] is ESA. None of that is NASA. It's all ESA stuff.
That's a good third of the show.
Cariann: Yeah. It's a relatively international show.
Ben: Speaking of international--
We've got the Yuri's Night global party coming up on April 12th.
Joining us live via Skype is Dr. Ryan, which is just fun to say.
Doctor Ryan..Doctor. Doctor....Doctor?...Doctor?
He is the Executive -- Ryan, what's your title?
Your the executive producer?
Dr. Ryan L. Kobrick: Yuri's Night Executive Director
Dr. Kobrick: I direct things apparently
Ben: You guys are announcing something tonight that is Yuri's Night related.
So what's going on?
Dr. Kobrick: So, Yuri's Night would like to announce the
Yuri's Night 2011 Video Contest.
We're going to be having an open source video contest.
Last year you may remember, or if you didn't know,
we collected over thirty videos from people around the space industry
and people related to space.
That went over pretty well.
We collected some gems and great little tidbits of people's experiences and
their favorite space moments.
This year we tried to go with more of a standard format.
We started interviewing people.
Then we realized that these were really long interviews but wouldn't it be great if
we gave them to the community and let them go out and
clip together their own tributes because this is the
50th anniversary of human space flight.
There's a lot of great ideas and great artists out there so
why try to edit our own videos again?
Let's open it up.
For this video contest (www.videocontest.yurisnight.net)
thanks to Jeffrey one of our stars on the executive team.
The contest is going to be having one large prize and
we're going to have some other prizes.
The big prize is $500 US and that's going to be sponsored by Open Luna.
We're really excited about not only their new partnership with us, but
now their sponsorship of the video contest.
We have six videos uploaded already.
Those six videos include ESA, we were just talking about ESA.
ESA's Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain he is ESA's number one guy in Europe
he gave us the first interview, which is really exciting to do.
Following that we also have the president of
The International Space University, Mike Simpson.
We've got a couple astronauts in there.
One of those astronauts is the
CU Boulder professor Joe Tanner, a good friend of mine.
Another Boulderite that we've interviewed is
Dr. S. Alan Stern from SwRI.
The two last guys--you guys might have heard their names.
One guy is known as Bill or something as he has some science show --
some people call him, Bill Nye: The Science Guy.
Ben: We just call him Bill.
Dr. Kobrick: That's going to be Bill.
And of course our sixth video that we've uploaded just recently thanks to NASA, is
Astronaut Ron Garan. That's @Astro_Ron.
He's our Astronaut Yuri's Night Ambassador this year.
He's going to be up on the Space Station during Yuri's Night.
So hopefully there's going to be some cool activities coming from the crew.
Of course every year we try to get a recorded message from the crew and
Ron's already helped us to set that up and we're hoping to get a really cool message down from them.
What else can I say?
There's more stuff going on for Yuri's Night. It's very exciting.
We hope that people register. We've got over ninety events
registered around the world so far.
We're hoping to shatter last year's tally which was 222 events.
We're trying to go for 1,000 events!
If we have more than 1,000 events then Spacevidcast will stay on for 24 hours straight.
Ben & Cariann: That's us--wait! That's US!
When did we agree to that?
Ben: We agreed to it live on the show.
For those who don't know -- we just assume that the Spacevidcasters know what Yuri's Night is
because we've talked about it so much and we did the global webcast last year.
Maybe there are some new people to the show that have never
heard of Yuri Gagarin and have no idea what this is all about.
Could you describe for me what Yuri's Night is and why this year is so important?
Dr. Kubrick: [chuckles] That should have been the first I said, I guess...
Yuri's Night is a global celebration of human spaceflight.
The first human in space was Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961.
Had to do a little think there for the date.
On April 12, 1981 was the first shuttle flight.
A few brains behind this said, "Hey that's a really cool space anniversary...
let's do something with that."
So George and Loretta Whitesides were the co-founders of an event called
Yuri's Night where they wanted people to come together to celebrate human spaceflight
in different ways.
Artistic.
Engineering.
Just getting people from around the world --
To mix pocket protectors with [chuckling] "raving people" and --
Not raving lunatics. You know what I mean.
Cariann & Ben [laughing] They're raving mad.
It's alright. We're just an internet show. It's all good.
Dr. Kobrick: The idea then was to celebrate the pinnacle of this one human achievement.
So April 12th every year for the last ten years, this will be the eleventh year or tenth anniversary,
is going to be the focal point again.
Our website is www.yurisnight.net which will pop up in the chat room
by the powers of magic I'm sure.
It's going to be pretty exciting.
It's the 50th Anniversary of Human Spaceflight.
It gives us even more of a focus on the event and
hopefully with everyone's help
we can spread the word and get lots of people to register for this event.
Ben: And it's completely free to register. You don't need to buy anything or do anything.
And you can host a gigantic party like the NASA Ames research center is going to do,
or you can have even just a small party in your home with a bunch of friends gathered around,
you know maybe with a TV and some music playing, you could have the Yuri's Night global webcast going on in the background,
as we jump from continent to continent showing the entire world celebrating 50 years of humans in space.
How awesome is that? 50 years of humans in space!
Look at how far we've come in such a short amount of time!
Dr. Kobrick: So like you mentioned registration, there's a link that just popped up in the chat room of course for registering.
And something you should know, also, a linked popped up for the shop.
We have gear available like the Yuri's Night T-shirts
and other cool swag.
One of the key items. We got special permission from Peanuts this year to do a commemorative patch and sticker logo
using our logo, the Yuri's Night logo with Snoopy. The Astronaut Snoopy to be specific.
You might hear a train go by. Don't be alarmed. It's perfectly normal and was planned.
The building might shake a little too. It's like me feed. You've got to watch out for that train.
Those patches, we have a very limited run. We can't even put the image of it on line because it's a copyright with them.
We're going to include one in the first fifty event packs that we're selling on line.
Those are only available through there. Of course we've reserved a few for the global webcast that can be handed out as you guys see fit as prizes.
Yes. They are a very limited edition so it should be pretty exciting to get those out.
Ben: This is a really cool announcement.
So we knew about Yuri's Night but now you've got
your video contest which is at http://videocontest.yurisnight.net/
You can create a video.
Recently there was a video on YouTube and I don't know if any of you saw this.
It was what NASA could do with inspiring people and it was
Carl Sagan's voice, some really nice music and some really great shots of planet Earth and the Solar system.
It was a very inspiring and moving piece.
Obviously you can't be ripping stuff off. You have to have the copyright for this because we have to be able to distribute it.
Make a similar, moving piece. Get people excited about human spaceflight.
Cariann: You could win $500 [US].
Ben: You could win $500 but more importantly,
you can get other people that didn't know there is this community.
This group of people excited about putting humans in space.
You could get them into part of that culture and get them excited.
Who knows? Maybe they're the next Elon Musk or Howard Hughes.
Or even the next Yuri Gregarin.
Well...
They can't be the first....
Well the first one on Mars! We'll say the first one on Mars.
Cariann: There you go.
Ben: Really cool announcements Ryan. Thank you very much
Dr. Kobrick: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks.
Ben: You know, speaking of Yuri's Night and that kind of stuff coming up,
we've also got the SpaceUp Conference coming up almost a week from today actually.
So we've got SpaceUp Houston, AND SpaceUp SD, San Diego.
In Houston, Texas and San Diego, California.
Two SpaceUp Conferences at the exact same time.
We're going to link them together via Spacevidcast.
Every pod of every room in both conferences will be streamed live on the website. BUT...
Having said that, there's nothing like attending in person.
You can watch on line but you can't interact the same way you can when you are there.
You have the ability to write on the board and create your own sessions and
actively participate.
If you really want it, really... go to one of these conferences.
If you have to travel no matter what, we recommend going to Houston.
But if you're closer to California and that's easier for you to get to
or you just can't make it to Houston, go to San Diego.
They're both fantastic .
Cariann: Although we do have some people who do live in California who are going to Houston.
It's very confusing. But it's awesome.
Ben: So SpaceUp Houston. This is the first time we've had a SpaceUp in Houston
Which is also why we're kind of pushing people towards Houston.
So they can see what it is and build it up and get that first one really going.
In San Diego, this will be the second time we've ever had a SpaceUp in San Diego.
And the first time we've ever had a SpaceUp repeat itself.
These are catching on like wildfire.
Chris Radcliff, the mastermind behind SpaceUp.
We've got T-5 talks. It's going to be - awesome!
It's going to be a technical challenge to stream all eight pods...
Cariann: Which is why you really should just go in person.
That way if we're down, you don't have to worry about it.
Ben: You really should. I look forward to meeting you.
I will be going to Houston and I look forward to meeting you Houstonites down there.
Cariann will be going to San Diego and she will meet all of you guys there.
We've got one little thing that we're going to be doing.
A video clip. Speaking of that...I'll see if I can't find it and play it in post show.
So if you're an EPIC subscriber you can find it or anyone who is watching live,
so you'll know what I'm talking about.
Otherwise, search YouTube for NASA SAGAN and limit it to the last month and it should pop up.
Cariann: Those of you going to those different SpaceUps, try and seek us out because we have a little, special project.
Did you want to talk about that?
Ben: Yes. I do. What we're doing, when the open is actually done...
we're going to be, much like last year, we had a voice that was talking about the
year 2010 as the tipping point and all the fun jazz.
This year we're going to change it every single week and we're going to use you,
the Spacevidcast community, to voice-over and change it every week.
We are developing inspirational, quick little snip-its that we'll have you read on camera.
Cariann: We're not talking soliloquies here.
We're talking three, four sentences, tops.
Ben: It's going to be of people who maybe are in the industry or maybe aren't in the industry,
but at the very least, want humans to go to space
saying, "This is what we can get from this."
We're going to air each one. It will act as a commercial for the show and air each one prior to every show.
So each and every show will have a different open.
Cariann: And it's a voice-over.
Ben: There will be a little video clip at the end of them saying, "I'm Tim Bailey and
I'm trying to change space by helping with Yuri's Night..." or whatever --
Cariann: By being awesome...by being THIS GUY!
Ben: By saying "my name is ..." so and so and I'm trying to put humans into space by doing --
whatever it may be.
Maybe it's spreading the word to my family and friends.
Maybe it's Elon Musk--"I'm building rockets."
Whatever it is, each person has their own thing that they're doing do get humans into space.
We want your stories.
We want your inspiration.
We're going to be at SpaceUp and STS-133 with the Tweetup members recording you.
We've got the scripts already laid out or you can create your own script.
When we're down there come seek us out and we'll get you on camera
so you can be part of Spacevidcast's open.
We need to develop 40 of these--so there you go.
Cariann: [lightly] We share with you so you can share with us.
Ben: I was going to go to break but I think before we do that --
we should probably talk about the Kepler stuff which is way at the bottom of my wiki.
It's because it was done chronologically.
So Kepler. This is the satellite/spacecraft that went up that is looking for exoplanets has FOUND exoplanets.
OH, HAS IT FOUND EXOPLANETS!
Cariann: By the DOZENS.
Ben: By the thousands. It found over a thousand exoplanets. We're still going through to actually verify all of them
but it's expected that ninety-plus percent of Kepler's findings will turn out
to be actual exoplanets.
And right now actually do we...?
I don't have a good still of this but I'll just bring it up on my computer.
You can kind of see... this is an image of what all the different planets look like and their size
and everything like that.
You can see the "goldilocks" zone in a green swath right down the middle.
You can see Earth right in the middle here and you've got Venus and Mars.
You can see most of these planets are just way too big. We've got mass along the left side,
and distance from it's sun across the bottom.
You can see they're either WAY too big or way too close. Most of them are too close to the sun.
The idea here is -- look at how close we're getting. Look how many we've found.
It's completely possible that we're going to actually start finding some Goldilocks planets.
Earth sized, some day very, very soon.
I would venture to bet that within the next five years we find a Goldilocks planet.
Cariann: Can we call it Goldilocks?
Ben: We should. We absolutely should.
Cariann: That would be very cool.
Ben: This is an amazing find from the Kepler space craft.
Cariann: And it just launched in what...2009?
Ben: Yeah.
Cariann: So it hasn't even been up there for two years.
And what it does is it looks at different stars and it
looks for the transients. So when an object,
an exoplanet, passes in front of the star it's going to create a little dimming effect.
A little "ba-loop".
So we're looking for -- Cariann: We're looking for the shadow.
Ben: We're looking for that "bloop".
Cariann: [disgusted] DON'T do that.
Ben: Ohhh....I didn't even think of that.
Cariann: We're looking for that shadow.
Ben: We're looking for that shadow.
Cariann: That's what we're looking for.
Ben: Can you see I'm blushing?
Cariann: Yeah. We should definitely go to break now.
Ben: On that note -- let's take a break and when we come back
we've got a lot of news coming out of Europe.
Stay with us. We'll be right back.
Cariann: THIS GUY. Ben: This GUY!
While we're out of break we should actually [stuttering] spank...spank our other sponsors?
We should thank our other sponsors.
We've got Perforce Software -- actually there's an ad thing you can run at the bottom instead of our names.
Perforce Software that sponsors this show's streaming in high definition for all of 2011.
They are the one's that have given us the ability
Look at that. How awesome is that?
Cariann: Tah-dah!!! Ben: BAM!
They are the ones who have given us the ability to actually stream STS-133. Not only in high definition,
but also to mobile and standard definition devices.
All at the same time. And we're going to be doing that from the Kennedy Space Center.
Cariann: Like this one. Or this one. Ben: Or this one, or this one.
And we couldn't have done it without Perforce's sponsorship.
So we thank them deeply for making that happen.
They're software geeks. They're the ones that do the code revisions.
The behind-the-scenes code versioning software.
You can go to perforce.com and get a FREE copy.
Not a limited trial or anything else like that.
Two users for free. So as you're developing your Android app that does something cool for space,
or looks for ISS sitings or something. As you're developing your iPhone app or
even your web app. We've installed it on our web servers and we're using for code management
for Spacevidcast. So we use it.
Other large, government agencies use it as well.
It scales from small shops where we just use the two license version,
because that's all we need, all the way up to thousands and thousands of people who need
to manage a code-base. It scales all the way up to that and everything in between.
So a big, huge, thank you to Perforce Software.
We've been talking about SpaceUp and this is working out perfectly because this is a rotating banner...
Telestream Software. They run quite a bit of the stuff on the show.
They have given us some licenses for Wirecast which is the streaming software we use
to stream live. They've given us enough licenses to stream every single pod
in real time and high quality.
It won't be hi-def. NOT because of Telestream, but because there's not enough bandwidth.
But we'll have a fantastic, quality stream because of Telestream.
It's not just Wirecast that we use. We do use it on the show. We use it for the archive recording.
For the recording. For the live streaming. All that fun jazz.
So you can kinda see these teeney, tiny boxes.
That one is Episode. We use Episode to compress the show.
We've used it from the beginning. Well before they were a sponsor.
It's just great software that we have used. It works
extremely well. We love them. Great products from Telestream.
So thank you. Both of you guys.
Speaking of --
Cariann: Perforce is the group who does the Mission Control Mondays. Right?
Ben: Yeah...yeah, yeah. They're nerds....
Cariann: Talk about nerds, I mean c'mon. Right?
Ben: If you're going to support any company...
They get it. So that's my... there you go.
ESA gets a budget boost of
5.43 BILLION dollars.
Cariann: Billion with a 'B'. Like Benny.
Benny: Like with Benny. Which is a good thing. We're seeing a budget increase with
NASA, with ESA and with
Roscosmos I believe. Let me go back.
You speak about ESA for a second and I'll look up Roscosmos.
Cariann: ESA's budget.
ESA is the European Space Agency. It's made up of
18 member nations and they've decided to
put in more money. They're investing in their future
which is incredible and very, very cool.
Ben: You said 18 member nations. It's actually 19 now.
Cariann: OH! It is 19.
Ben: The next story down is Romania has become the 19th ESA [member].
At the time of that story it was a 18 members.
Cariann: So 19 members...Are they the ones who just threw in all the extra cash?
Ben: It could be.
[amused] Now we know it costs approximately 5.43 billion dollars to become a member of ESA.
That's the buy in.
Cariann: [playfully] Spacevidcast is going to invest in ESA next year.
Ben: So they're getting increasing, additional funds there.
Cariann: It's like a seven or eight percent budget increase. Which is huge.
Ben: What's interesting is that Arianespace is all part of this as well.
My understanding is they're having a
financial hard time and trying to figure out where all of this is
going to be coming from.
This sounds like it will help out quite a bit with that.
Especially since they're launching --
Not only are they putting a Soyuz launch pad in
French Guiana -- I was like, in Russia! -- No...
In French Guiana, they are also developing the new
Vega spacecraft as well.
Actually, you know what?! We have got a video about that.
It's in traditional space-style.
Where it's really cool stuff done in a
mono-chromatic voice.
But it's still a really good video --
Cariann: Mono-chromatic? Ben: I think it's worth watching it all the way through.
Mono-chromatic? Cariann: Mono-tone.
Ben: Mono-chromatic. There's no color in the voice. No, no. No color in the voice. I'm going to stick with that.
Cariann: Okay. It's still wrong. (she's right)
Ben: I'm going to pretend that it's right.
Cariann: Are we going to roll the video? Ben: Here's the video.
Stuffy British Narrator: At first sight it looks like
a newer version of Russia's Baikanur Cosmodrome.
But the characteristic lightning conductors and lush rain forest
give away the fact that this is in fact
Europe's spaceport in French Guiana where a brand new
launch pad has been developed for the Russian Soyuz rocket.
Later this year an updated Soyuz will
make it's inaugural flight from the facility.
A truly historical event
as this rocket has never been launched outside Russia before.
Mr. Coulon: The launch base now has been completed now.
We are on the backside to see the mobile gantry.
The mobile gantry is almost completed.
The launcher is already assembled in the assembly building.
Now we are just waiting for, to transfer to
the launch pad to Arianespace
to perform the operational qualification and the first campaign.
Narrator: After more than 50 years of service,
the legendary Soyuz, which carried both Sputnik and
Yuri Gagarin into orbit, will add a medium class launcher
to Europe's fleet of space vehicles operated by Arianespace
This marks a milestone in cooperation between Russian
and European space industries.
The most recent version of the launcher is called
Soyuz 2 and will be able to carry three tonnes
to geostationary transfer orbit
from French Guinana, compared to
1.7 tonnes from Kazakhstan.
This is because Europe's launch site is nearer to the equator,
where the Earth rotates fastest giving the rocket more velocity
at liftoff.
Traditionally, Soyuz launchers are mated to their
payloads whilst in a horizontal position.
The whole assembly is then raised upright for launch.
However, at Guiana Space Center a specialized mobile gantry has been built
allowing cargo to be added whilst the spacecraft is already in a vertical position.
Mr. Coulon: The mobile gantry was decided in May 2004 to give to Arianespace
the opportunity to assemble the payload
on the launcher the same way on Ariane, Vega, and Soyuz.
It gives also access to the launcher
to all the interface: Mechanical, Electrical...
That is the main reason for this mobile gantry on the launch pad.
But Soyuz is not the only new edition to Europe's Spaceport.
At the site of the earlier Ariane launches,
a new facility has been built to accommodate Vega.
This European launcher has been developed to carry small satellites into orbit.
And it's construction is almost complete.
Michel de Braine: Concerning the launch pad, everything is ready.
Concerning the launcher, the launcher is finalized.
We have the first stage already manufactured here in Guiana.
The second and third stage are in Europe ready to be sent to Guiana.
Narrator: Funded by seven of ESA's 18 member states, Vega has been produced in response
to the demand for smaller satellites.
Particularly for science and Earth observation missions.
It will be able to carry a payload of one and a half tonnes into orbit and unlike most small launchers,
can deploy multiple satellites.
This mock-up of Vega's first stage was built for the initial testing phase,
after which assembly of the actual launcher can begin.
Mssr. de Braine: Currently we have the mock-up of the first stage inside of the mobile gantry.
Now, we are preceding to the last test of the integration of the mock-up and
after that of the real actual launcher.
Together with Ariane V, Europe's heavy workhorse, Soyuz and Vega will give Europe
the full range of launchers it needs to compete in today's marketplace.
From carrying ESA's automated transfer vehicle to the International Space Station
to launching telecommunication satellites, Guiana's space center will soon be equipped
to rise to every challenge presented by the global spaceflight community.
Ben: So rolling the whole thing was a bad idea. That was boring.
But, lots of really good information in there and the key here is that Arianespace
and ESA are going to have really a well-flushed out rocket lineup.
They're going to have Vega for those smaller loads that is less expensive,
you don't want to use a really big rocket for that necessarily.
They're going to have Soyuz for the medium loads.
Then they're going to have the Ariane Five for the heavy loads.
So that's going to be a really really awesome lineup for them when all of that is
up and running and ready to go.
Additionally Roscosmos, Russia, is looking to upgrade all of their stuff.
They're throwing more money at space as well.
So they've got ...
Cariann: Which I would too. If my neighbor was doing it, I would be doing it too.
Ben: Well doesn't it feel like everyone's throwing more ...
There's this huge, I don't know what it is, there seems to be this resurgence in space suddenly.
And it kind of started in 2010, but we're really starting to see the effects of it now.
So ESA's increased their budget. NASA did increase their budget.
We'll talk about NASA in a minute.
But, Russia, they've gone from a budget of about $2.4 billion to $3.8 billion for 2011.
So this year. They're also working on the new Angara, I believe that's how you pronounce it,
A-n-g-a-r-a forgive me if I pronounce that wrong.
The new Angara craft, what am I trying to say, rockets.
So they've got new rockets, ESA's got new rockets. Then we've got the private
space companies building new rockets. Only good can come of this.
Even if a good chunk of them fail, some of them will succeed.
And we're going to have new vehicles, modern day vehicles, that weren't built and designed
in the 50s and 60s, available to us now today.
Cariann: Or in the 80s ...
Ben: Well the Space Shuttle, was that what you were thinking of?
Well that was more designed in the 70s and built in 80s I guess.
Well, and then redesigned in the 80s. Like, "Oh! These tiles don't stick!"
So yeah, Russia is increasing their budget. I don't know, I think it's pretty awesome.
That's pretty neat!
Cariann: The thing I think is kind of funny in the one article is that Russia is
kind of talking about, "Yeah, we're sort of the cabbies of space."
"But we like it like that!"
Well yeah, if nobody else is going ...
Ben: So for 2011, Russia is planning to increase to 48 launches up from 31 last year.
Cariann: That's huge!
Ben: Yeah, I mean that's a lot.
Cariann: Well that was up a few from the year prior.
Right?
Ben: I don't know.
Cariann: Oh, I'm sorry. Nope. My fault. The 31 launches from Russia accounted for
41% of the world's total.
Ben: And you know, when the Space Shuttle retires, if the COTS programs aren't
ready to go ... Well, if we don't have a private company such as SpaceX or Orbital
capable of sending humans to the International Space Station, then we will have no choice
but to buy tickets on something like ... Well, actually that's not entirely true.
Let's jump to the NASA story. You know Caf, can you pull up the IRC chat room for a minute?
I would like to ask these guys a question.
Cariann: Uh oh.
Now you're in trouble.
Ben: The space shuttle is supposed to be retiring this year, 2011.
Cariann: It's supposed to be retiring last year in 2010.
Ben: Yup. What I'd like to know chat room is what year you think it will actually retire.
Cariann: I already said 2012 personally.
Ben: Yup, she said 2012, I'm not going to do anything yet, so chat room
what year do you think the Space Shuttle will actually retire?
[Cariann laughs]
Ben: 2011, 2012, 2011, 2012, 2011. Youtuber says never.
Um, yeah some of them have read the Wikipedia article.
Cariann: Well wikkit says 2013 April!
He was very specific.
Ben: So ah clearly some of them ...
Cariann: Oh somebody says they already have retired the Space Shuttle.
Ben: So there are plans. Now this doesn't mean anything official.
This is just people talking.
Cariann: Hell, we can't even get 135 in the air!
Ben: There are plans of keeping Space Shuttle Endeavour around until 2017 in a flight-ready status.
This is a MSNBC article, this is actually the first I've heard of it.
The idea is ... There were a couple of ideas on the drawing board.
Uh, part of the CCDev 2 program. One of them is from United Launch Alliance I believe.
I don't have my notes in front of me, so let me bring those up real quick.
Cariann: I don't remember seeing ULA in here. I do remember seeing USA though.
Ben: Was it USA? Cariann: Yes.
Ben: Alright, so I kind of misread it guys. Cariann: You're not the only one. Right QG?
Ben: So USA, what is that, United Space Alliance has basically said, "Alright, here is a proposal
to keep both Atlantis and Endeavour flying two missions per year until such a time that we
have a replacement vehicle." Cariann: Note - not Discovery.
Ben: Yeah, I thought that was fun. So all of you Discovery fans out there, no.
They're like, "No, no, no, seriously. We're done with that one!"
"You guys can have that one back, no more Discovery, but Atlantis & Endeavour [thumbs up]"
Yeah, you're good with those two.
Another plan was to just keep Endeavour kind of in a processing facility but flight-ready to go
just in case it's needed at any moment in time.
This is a really fascinating article. Again, these are simply some ideas as to things we could do.
Cariann: We have it all on our wiki, so if you want to go back and look at it ...
Ben: These aren't even things with any semblance of being official whatsoever.
So don't read into this saying, "But ..."
Many Spacevidcasters have brought up very valid points of "You know, I don't think we're
going to retire the Space Shuttle." I feel like a lot of people think it's in NASA's best interest
to keep the Space Shuttle going for as long as they can.
So I'm not entirely sure that we are going to retire the Space Shuttle in 2012 or 2011.
Cariann: You know, it just keeps getting more and more dangerous and that seems really scary to me.
That's like driving the car without having like ... [makes hand gestures as Ben cuts in]
Ben: I don't think it's more dangerous. It's just dangerous to run the vehicle.
No, it's no more or less dangerous to fly the vehicle now than it was, say five years ago.
In fact it may even be safer now than it was 20 years ago.
They're keeping the vehicles in great shape, it's just that the vehicle is a deadly vehicle.
It's not a ... There's really no launch abort system.
Cariann: Yeah hantonr's asking what USA is. It's the United Space Alliance.
Ben: You've got ULA and USA, so when you're watching them put all the astronauts
Cariann: ... in the white room
Ben: Yeah, you see the big USA signs, it's those guys.
Cariann: That's them. They're not just patriotic.
That's really the name of their company.
Ben: Exactly. So interesting stuff possibly happening ...
Well, not possibly, I don't want to say that. Interesting stuff being talked about
by organizations that have no control over what's going to actually happen with the Space Shuttle.
Cariann: That's like us saying, "You know what? I was going to drive that shuttle home one day..."
Ben: And before we go into post-show, I do want to remind everyone: STS-135,
That is a mission that NASA has said is a mission, but has not been funded.
And all these websites are writing saying we've got this final STS-135 mission.
That is NOT the case. STS-135 has not been funded by the appropriations committee,
which NASA does not control.
So until that happens, STS-135 is on paper only.
No I don't know if I want to say there is a ... good chance of it happening. I don't know!
I really don't know what's going to happen.
It's really hard. It's really hard ...
Cariann: I mean you could pretty much pick up a magic 8-ball and get a clearer answer.
Ben: Go back 4 years and you probably could have said "Yeah, this is going to happen for sure."
But, with the economy the way it is now. I'm just 50/50 on it. I really don't know if we're going to have a STS-135.
I really would love to. I'd love to have Atlantis fly one more time and get one more mission.
But, who knows what's going to happen.
Alright, I'd like to thank everyone for watching this week.
Remember next week we're going to have one more show and then ...
Yeah, so we'll have a show next week and then Cariann and I are heading off to SpaceUp,
to cover those conferences. So certainly tune in to Spacevidcast to watch all of those different pods live.
It's going to be pretty awesome and you can participate. We've even got people
kind of looking at the chat room. You're going to have a lot of fun.
And then, like I said, we should be back next week and there you go!
For everyone watching live, stay with us. Spacevidcast after dark is up next!
Otherwise check out Spacevidcast EPIC for your chance to be able to watch after dark.
Cariann: And submit a video to Yuri's Night!
Ben: And submit a video to Yuri's Night, we'll see you next week!