Space Exploration

Bob Kahl slips in through a side door of the vast, abandoned hangar and looks at what's left of the assembly plant where he worked for nearly 40 years. He remembers the hum of power tools, the biting aroma of cutting oil, swarms of workers plugging away on a labyrinth of yellow scaffolding. All that's left is a few piles of broken concrete and a sea of colorless dust that coats a Palmdale factory floor the size of two football fields. "Welcome to the birthplace of America's space shuttle fleet," said Kahl, 60, smiling.

In a pivotal moment for private spaceflight, a towering white rocket lifted into space a cone-shaped capsule headed for a three-day trip carrying cargo to the International Space Station and a tricky rendezvous in outer space this week. The launch Tuesday marked the first time a private company has sent a spacecraft to the space station. On a column of fire, a Falcon 9 rocket - built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX - carried the unmanned Dragon capsule into space after a 3:44 a.m. EDT launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. But the launch is just the beginning of the mission, and some of the most challenging tasks lie ahead.

Until this century, we could only observe space from Earth, but in 1957, the first man-made satellite was launched. Now, we explore other planets with robotic vehicles and astronauts live in a space station. Scientists also scan the heavens using powerful telescopes to learn about planets, comets, asteroids, nebulas, stars and other galaxies. To learn more about space exploration, use the direct links on The Times Launch Point Web site: http://www.latimes.

A cultural moment is passing. The space shuttle Discovery, strapped to the back of a Boeing 747, was recently ferried with great fanfare to its new home at a branch of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. The California Science Center is building an aircraft hangar for its sister shuttle, Endeavour, which is expected to arrive in Los Angeles in the fall. The remaining shuttle, Atlantis, is in Florida, where it will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center. Useful artifacts of daily life, however rarefied, are moving into the look-but-don't-touch precinct of museum galleries, like ancient Greek storage vases or Edwardian pantaloons.

In his native South Africa, science whiz Elon Musk struck his first business deal when he made $500 selling the code for a "Space Invaders"-style video game he invented. He was 12. It took only another decade or so for him to make some real money: By age 23 Musk had his first significant company in Web software maker Zip2. He banked $22 million when he sold it in 1999 to Compaq Computer. And last year, he pocketed about $150 million in EBay Inc.

Re "Uncertain Science in Orbit," Feb. 5: NASA should be directed to conduct only unmanned space exploration. It is cheaper, less complex and will not involve the loss of life. The ongoing Columbia accident investigation boards will come up with some safety recommendations for future space missions. Eventually NASA will drift back into its pre-Columbia ways, there will be another catastrophic accident, and the cycle will repeat itself. The best solution is unmanned space flight. Ronald Hart Palmdale How is it that less than a week after the Columbia disaster an inquiry is up and running, but almost a year and a half later the Bush administration is still dragging its feet over the Sept.

Re "Rock analysis turns up evidence of moon water," July 10 I am not surprised by this news of ancient water on the moon. The knowledge about our universe accumulated by NASA and space researchers over the last 50 years has completely revised our image of the cosmos. In the early 1950s, most people thought that most of the observable universe was an empty void where very little had been happening. We have since learned that water is probably one of the most common resources in our solar systems and that almost every planet and moon had, or now has, deposits of water in one form or another.

Here's the rundown on guests and topics for the weekend's public-affairs programs: Today "Saturday Journal": 5 a.m. C-SPAN. "Evans & Novak": Marion Barry, mayor of Washington, D.C., 2:30 p.m., repeats Sunday, 7 a.m. CNN. "John McLaughlin's One on One": Michael Bloomberg, 2:30 p.m. (28). "Tony Brown's Journal": roots of music featuring black hymns, slave songs, 3:30 p.m. (28). "Inside Politics Weekend": 3:30 p.m.; repeats midnight CNN. "Capital Gang Saturday": Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.

His mother's maiden name was Moon. Buzz Aldrin, it seems, was destined from birth to travel to the rocky sphere more than 200,000 miles from planet Earth. Today he says of being on the moon: "I was exhilarated but guarded. . . . I knew that our every move and word were on display to the entire world, even though we were the only living creatures within a quarter of a million miles."

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., a start-up seeking to slash the cost of coursing through the cosmos, has been granted a five-year license to launch rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Air Force said. The approval could help El Segundo-based SpaceX, as the privately held company is known, compete with Orbital Sciences Corp., which develops small space systems, and later with the bigger rockets of Europe's Arianspace and the United Launch Alliance.

It's been a rough year for NASA. President Obama's proposed budget for 2013 would slash $300 million from the agency's planetary sciences division - a 20% cut from the $1.5 billion it received for 2012. And many Americans are wondering if it makes sense to spend federal dollars on space exploration rather than putting that money to more practical use right here on Earth. But here to tell you that space exploration is both cool and practical is none other than will.i.am, producer and frontman of the super group Black Eyed Peas.

The reviews of Angry Birds Space are in and they are -- dare we say it -- out of this world. In previous iterations of Angry Birds, Finnish game maker Rovio kept the formula of the wildly successful game the same. The birds moved to different locales and donned different costumes, but the general catapulting physics of the game remained the same. Not so in Angry Birds Space, released for download on Apple iOS, Google Android, PC and Mac on Thursday. Because the rules of gravity are different in space, and they change depending on how close you are to physical bodies, the catapulted birds sometimes act just like you would expect them to. Other times, they  float off into space (if they get beyond the gravitational pull of a planetary body)

At a launchpad in Cape Canaveral sits a spaceship atop an 18-story rocket that NASA officials hope will be the first privately built craft to dock with the International Space Station. On Thursday, the company that manufactures the spacecraft, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., performed a successful launch readiness test for its upcoming flight - an important step on the road to the space station. The company, better known as SpaceX, posted the news on its Twitter page about fueling its Falcon 9 rocket with rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen as it stood vertical at its launch complex.

Taking his campaign to Florida's space coast, Mitt Romney used the backdrop of an obsolete space module that once flew on the shuttle to call for a “new mission” for the U.S. space program and to accuse President Obama of failing to spur job growth as NASA initiatives have been scaled back. But the former Massachusetts governor offered few specifics about what that mission would be or how his approach would differ from President Obama's - beyond assembling a group to discuss the possible ideas.

A spacecraft sent to the least explored rocky planet in the solar system is providing surprising new information that may rewrite what scientists believe about the growth of planets. Mercury, the tiny planet closest to the sun, has a lopsided magnetic field, much more sulfur than expected and strange "hollows" across its surface that may hint at present-day geologic activity, according to data gleaned by the Messenger spacecraft. The results, published in a package of seven papers in Friday's edition of the journal Science, may force scientists to throw out many ideas about how Mercury formed.

Despite their proximity to the sun, portions of the surface of Mercury appear to be covered in ice, scientists said Thursday after analyzing about 20,000 new images of the solar system's smallest planet. The pictures beamed to Earth by the Messenger spacecraft strongly suggest that frozen water -- and perhaps other frozen substances -- coat portions of impact craters near the planet's north and south poles. Permanently enshrouded in shadow, these surfaces are typically 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

Re "Longest-Serving NASA Chief to Quit," Oct. 18: Let us hope that whoever succeeds outgoing NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin will continue to pursue interplanetary space exploration with the same enthusiasm that he did. Specifically, NASA should commit itself to sending a man-made probe on a fly-by mission to Pluto. The importance of exploring Pluto cannot be overstated. It is the only planet in our solar system discovered by an American, but it remains the only one not yet visited by a U.S. spacecraft.

With NASA's fleet of aging space shuttles set for retirement at the end of the year, the space agency is looking for a new way to carry astronauts. On Monday, NASA handed out $269.3 million to four companies to privately develop rockets and spacecraft for what could be the next step in manned spaceflight. The winners included Hawthorne-based rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, and Boeing Co., which develops spacecraft in Huntington Beach and uses rocket engines made by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park.

Work is quietly underway in the South Bay on a massive 22-story rocket whose power is rivaled in the U.S. only by the mighty Saturn V rocket, which took man to the moon, in a risky private venture that could herald a new era in space flight. Dubbed Falcon Heavy, the 27-engine booster is being assembled by rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, at its sprawling complex in Hawthorne where it has about 1,100 workers. The rocket, which has twice the lifting capability of the next largest launcher built by a U.S. company, is being announced Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington.