A new poll asked Americans whether money had been well spent on the shuttle program. The results: 48 percent yes, and 48 percent no. The remaining 4 percent couldn’t launch an opinion.

Meanwhile, 57 percent rate the job NASA is doing as excellent (17 percent) or good (40 percent), and 30 percent rate it as fair with 7 percent calling it poor.

Some 17 percent said we should spend more on the space program, but a third figure we should reduce the funding or cut it entirely.

And you?

The poll results are here.

A NASA astronaut who said he was fired from his position as head of engineer at the agency’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston cited management differences as the reason for his departure.

In a statement released Wednesday, astronaut Charles Camarda said he was removed from his position by JSC director Michael Coats because “we did not see eye to eye on management style.”

Camarda, 54, served as a mission specialist on NASA’s STS-114 shuttle mission – the agency’s first post-Columbia accident orbiter flight – last summer and later took up the position as JSC’s director of engineering.

His removal, and subsequent reassignment to NASA Engineering and Safety Center, an independent safety oversight group in Virginia’s Langley Research Center, was announced after an e-mail written by Camarda on the job shift was widely reported in the media. The announcement came less than a week before NASA’s planned July 1 launch of its STS-121 mission.

Camarda’s statement said he has been assured that he “will be participating in the upcoming flight as part of the Mission Management Team.”

“I look forward to working toward the successful completion of STS-121,” Carmada’s statement read.

Look for the House of Representatives to soon wrap up its consideration of the fiscal year 2007 Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Appropriations bill – the legislation that fork’s up funding for NASA.
 
One of their recommendations includes $15 million for NASA to study and plan for a new start on a Europa mission as part of its fiscal year 2008 budget request.

The Committee also directs NASA to enter into an arrangement with the National Research Council for an independent assessment of how the International Space Station can best be used as a technology testbed in support of the stated objectives of the Vision for Space Exploration – the Moon, Mars and Beyond effort.

And for you Hubble fans, the Committee supports NASA’s efforts to plan for the extension of the life of the aging Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and maintains that the HST servicing mission should be one of NASA’s “top near-term priorities.” The recommendation provides requested funding for the HST servicing mission; however, these funds should not be used to de-orbit the big eye in space.

Science rarely deals in absolutes. And that’s why there are scientific debates. I have not seen Al Gore’s movie yet, but some of those who have speak of Gore’s absolutely convincing argument for human-affected global warming. That’s just the sort of thing that you know will spur debate.

But this week’s version of the debate centers on an Associated Press story, in which scientists are said to have given Gore’s movie high marks for accuracy.

In a rather unusual response, a U.S. Senate committee has released a statement criticizing the AP article for being one-side, for ignoring both evidence and the scientists lined up against Gore’s version of the tale.

If you’ve seen the movie, weigh in here. And either way, see this as a sign that the whole debate is not going away anytime soon, no matter what the latest studies reveal about climate change.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The word here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Press Site is that Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne will be in attendance Saturday when the space shuttle Discovery launches its STS-121 astronaut crew spaceward.

“The Vice President and Mrs. Cheney are thrilled to be attending NASA’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery this Saturday,” Jennifer Mayfield, a spokesperson for the Vice President’s press office, told me tonight via telephone.

Mayfield said Vice President Cheney and his wife were invited to NASA’s STS-121 launch and the upcoming Pepsi 400 NASCAR race in Daytona Beach.

The First Lady, Laura Bush, attended last year’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery during NASA’s STS-114 return to flight mission. President George W. Bush later spoke with Discovery’s seven-astronaut crew, commanded by the now-retired veteran shuttle commander Eileen Collins, and the Expedition 11 crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA’s STS-121 mission is the space agency’s second orbiter flight since the 2003 Columbia accident.

The mission is set to launch on July 1 at 3:49 p.m. EDT (1949 GMT).

NASA officials will meet Thursday to decide what to do with the Hubble Space Telescope’s main camera, which has not been working since Monday, June 19.

“We believe we are very close to fully understanding the issue experienced with the camera and we are going to resolve it,” Ed Ruitberg, associate program manager for Hubble at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said today in a statement. “However, before we proceed with any actions, we want to have a review board meeting to assess both the trouble-shooting and the proposed solution.”

The situation, as stated today, is not much different from our story Friday. But in today’s oddly phrased statement, there is a strong hint that the solution is a done deal: “Engineers anticipate instrument observations will resume no earlier than July 3, with no degradation to performance.”
NASA will hold a media teleconference Friday morning—another suggestion that this has all been figured out—and SPACE.com will report on it.

At least 14 American astronauts have developed kidney stones in the last 5 years, say researchers at the University of Minnesota. Kidney stones are mineral deposits that can be “passed” through the urinary tract in a most painful manner.

The situation could become more accute if we ever venture back to the Moon or beyond.

“This becomes a real health concern, as the time astronauts spend in space and living in the space station is extended,” said study leader Manoj Monga.

Monga’s team put pairs of identical twins on inclined beds for 30 days to simulate effects of microgravity, then had one group exercise while their twins did not. Those who didn’t exercise had higher levels of urinary calcium.

In the July issue of the Journal of Urology, Monga and colleagues write that astronauts need to exercise and drink more water, as infrequent peeing is a bad sign. More on kidney stones here.

The super-quiet Blue Origin commercial space firm – backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com – has submitted a draft environmental assessment for their West Texas launch site to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) in Washington, D.C.

The over 200-page document details Blue Origin, LLC’s plans for building the New Shepard Reusable Launch System. This suborbital vehicle is to be built incrementally, beginning with low-altitude vehicle testing, progressing to higher-altitude testing, and culminating with commercial flights. Early testing would use prototype vehicles that are smaller and/or less capable than the proposed end design.

Blue Origin’s operations would be conducted from a site located on privately-owned land located between Van Horn, Texas and the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The proposed operation would require the construction of a number of support facilities on the site, including upgraded roads, operations and storage buildings, a launch and a landing pad, and others items.

Before flying the human-carrying operational New Shepard reusable launch vehicle in commercial mode, Blue Origin is proposing to develop and flight test, starting in late 2006, a series of unpiloted prototypes at the West Texas launch site. The first of these vehicles would be a low-altitude demonstrator of the propulsion module.

Ten or fewer flight tests could be conducted in late 2006, the document states, each to an altitude of approximately 610 meters (2,000 feet) for less than one minute.

A letter that Charles Darwin wrote to a clergyman patiently explaining how his theory of natural selection works will be sold next month in a Sotheby’s auction.

The letter is dated October 15, 1860, a year after “The Origin of Species” was published, and was written in response to a letter by Rev William Denton, a Victorian clergyman who expressed doubts about Darwin’s theory.

“I am very far from being surprised at anyone not accepting my conclusions on the origin of species,” Darwin wrote.

Darwin explains in six pages how evolution by natural selection works and gaves exampes of natural variation and artificial selection in horses, pigs and cats.

“Those naturalists who go a little way with me, the more they reflect on the subject the further they go,” he adds.

“It’s a very charming letter,” Southeby manuscript specialist Gabriel Heaton told National News. “He doesn’t talk down to Denton, who clearly knows far, far less about the subject matter than he does - it seems that William Denton has probably misread the book but Darwin is very, very generous to him.

“The fact he wrote a long and detailed letter in itself is very generous. They probably didn’t know each other.”

According to New Scientist, the letter is expected to fetch between £20,000 to £30,000, or about U.S. $36,500 to $55,000.

Mission managers today said they’ve started to move the lunar-orbiting SMART-1 spacecraft into position for a Sept. 3 crash landing. The thruster firings will prevent the mission from ending before a little more science can be squeezed out.

As European Space Agency officials put it: “The recently started maneuver campaign aims to avoid having the spacecraft intersect with the Moon at a disadvantageous time from the scientific point of view.”

The impact has been planned for months, but was slated for Sept. 1 or 2. One goal of the moves announced today is to make sure the craft hits the Moon at a spot and time that will allow astronomers to watch it to see what’s kicked up.

“The shift in date, time and location for Moon intersection is … optimized to favor scientific observations from Earth,” said Gerhard Schwehm, ESA’s SMART-1 Mission Manager. “Projections based on the current orbit indicated that the spacecraft, if left as is, would impact the Moon on the far side, away from ground contact and visibility. The new location is on the Moon’s near-side, at mid-southern latitudes.”

More about the mission here.