NASA should have big 2011

The New York Times reports on scheduled missions centered on Mercury and Mars. New rovers, more hopes of water in the shadows of Mercury's crater rims and the International Space Station finally whole. The story's here.

NASA Astronaut in Memphis

Astronaut and engineer Bonnie Dunbar spoke this week to a women's-advancement group at Medtronic, and touched on the future of human spaceflight. The Obama Administration has proposed commercializing the flights. The MDN reports it.

NASA looks to Gordon's Science Committee for help

The Daily News Journal (Gannett) reports that NASA, inevitably, is looking to Murfreesboro Democrat U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, who chairs the House science committee, for help in getting funds needed to sustain NASA's interplanetary ambitions.

AEDC Tullahoma role in Ares launch

Engineers at Arnold Engineering Development Center at Tullahoma are high after seeing their wind-tunnel tests contribute to a success Ares I-X launch. The TFP reports.

ORNL Climate: Raining money

The KNS reports that Oak Ridge National Laboratory will get $215MM for advanced research from the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration for climate change-related studies, in addition to funding already flowing toward ORNL for that purpose from DOE, NSF and NASA. The combination of supercomputing resources and a high-calibre team of scientists-in-residence gives ORNL momentum.

TVA appoints communications chief

In effort to bring what it refers to as 'greater clarity' to its communications, TVA in Knoxville has hired David Mould away from his job as NASA's assistant administrator for public affairs. Mould earlier served as a special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. Previously, he was a principal in the Washington, D.C. office of Griswold-Lesser, an Atlanta-based public-affairs firm. Prior to that, he was VP-communications for PG&E National Energy Group, a wholesale electricity and natural gas supplier affiliated with PG&E Corp. of San Francisco. He also has served as director of public relations for Mirant Corp., an electricity and natural gas supplier based in Atlanta, and as media relations manager for Southern Company of Atlanta, one of the nation’s largest holding companies for electric utilities. Earlier in his career, he was a reporter and editor for United Press International (UPI), for which he covered the 1986 NASA Challenge Space Shuttle accident and 19 other shuttle missions, among other national and international duties. He has a business master's from Emory and a bachelor's in communications from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. KNS story, here. Emily, a former staffer for then-U.S. Sen. Bill Frist and former secretary of the Senate, continues to lead TVA government relations and regional outreach, according to a TVA release.

SS Columbia: NASA reports on deaths of Seven and their craft

Nearly six years ago, on Feb. 1, 2003, seven Astronauts were killed when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated, due ultimately to a 1.6-lb. piece of foam insulation breaking loose and damaging a wing. Today, The New York Times published its story about NASA's investigation of that catastrophe, and the 400-page NASA document is here. Though the entire matter is being handled with sensitivity, a review of the technical report of damage and failure factors leaves at least one reader somewhat stunned, and grateful for the report. NASA rightly also celebrates its 2008 successes, here.