Washington, U.S.A. — The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden regarding the death of former test pilot and NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong, who died on August 25 at age 82.

“On behalf of the entire NASA family, I would like to express my deepest condolences to Carol and the rest of Armstrong family on the passing of Neil Armstrong. As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind’s first small step on a world beyond our own.

“Besides being one of America’s greatest explorers, Neil carried himself with a grace and humility that was an example to us all. When President Kennedy challenged the nation to send a human to the moon, Neil Armstrong accepted without reservation.

“As we enter this next era of space exploration, we do so standing on the shoulders of Neil Armstrong. We mourn the passing of a friend, fellow astronaut and true American hero.”

The following is a statement from Johnson Space Center director and former astronaut Mike Coats:

“The passing of Neil Armstrong has shocked all of us at the Johnson Space Center. The whole world knew Neil as the first man to step foot on the Moon, but to us he was a co-worker, a friend, and an outstanding spokesman for the Human Space Program. His quiet confidence and ability to perform under pressure set an example for all subsequent astronauts. Our role model will be missed.”

The following is a statement from Bob Behnken, chief, NASA Astronaut Office:

“Neil Armstrong was a very personal inspiration to all of us within the astronaut office. His historic step onto the Moon’s surface was the foundation for many of our personal dreams to become astronauts. The only thing that outshone his accomplishments was his humility about those accomplishments. We will miss him as a friend, mentor, explorer and ambassador for the American spirit of ingenuity.”

Additional information about Armstrong is available on the Web at:
http://www.nasa.gov 
http://www.neilarmstronginfo.com

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Washington, U.S.A. – NASA and the Interior Department Monday, July 23 marked the 40th anniversary of the Landsat program, the world’s longest-running Earth-observing satellite program. The first Landsat satellite was launched July 23, 1972, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The 40-year Landsat record provides global coverage that shows large-scale human activities such as building cities and farming. The program is a sustained effort by the United States to provide direct societal benefits across a wide range of human endeavors, including human and environmental health, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery and agriculture.

Landsat images from space are not merely pictures. They contain many layers of data collected at different points along the visible and invisible light spectrum. A single Landsat scene taken from 400 miles above Earth can accurately detail the condition of hundreds of thousands of acres of grassland, agricultural crops or forests.

“Landsat has given us a critical perspective on our planet over the long term and will continue to help us understand the big picture of Earth and its changes from space,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “With this view we are better prepared to take action on the ground and be better stewards of our home.”

In cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a science agency of the Interior Department, NASA launched six of the seven Landsat satellites. The resulting archive of Earth observations forms a comprehensive record of human and natural land changes.

“Over four decades, data from the Landsat series of satellites have become a vital reference worldwide for advancing our understanding of the science of the land,” said Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar. “The 40-year Landsat archive forms an indelible and objective register of America’s natural heritage and thus it has become part of this department’s legacy to the American people.”

Remote-sensing satellites such as the Landsat series help scientists to observe the world beyond the power of human sight, to monitor changes and to detect critical trends in the conditions of natural resources.

“With its entirely objective, long term records for the entire surface of the globe, the Landsat archive serves as the world’s free press, allowing any person, anywhere, to access vital information without charge,” said Interior’s Anne Castle, assistant secretary for water and science. “Landsat has been a game changer for agricultural monitoring, climate change research and water management.”

NASA is preparing to launch the next Landsat satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), in February 2013 from Vandeberg. LDCM will be the most technologically advanced satellite in the Landsat series. LDCM sensors take advantage of evolutionary advances in detector and sensor technologies to improve performance and increase reliability. LDCM will join Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites in Earth orbit to continue the Landsat data record.

“The first 40 years of the Landsat program have delivered the most consistent and reliable record of Earth’s changing landscape,” said Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “We look forward to continuing this tradition of excellence with the even greater capacity and enhanced technologies of LDCM.”

NASA and USGS will highlight the accomplishments of the Landsat program in a televised news briefing 11 a.m. EDT, Monday at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, in Washington. During the briefing, the agencies will announce the 10 most significant images from the Landsat record; the U.S. regions selected for the “My American Landscape” contest showing local environmental changes; and the top five Landsat “Earth As Art” images selected in an online poll. The public is encouraged to participate in the briefing’s question-and-answer sessions by using the Twitter hashtag #asknasa.

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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and other senior agency officials joined President Obama in honoring student science fair winners from across the country at the second annual White House Science Fair  in the East Wing of the White House. The event highlighted student achievement and excellence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

In November 2009, the president announced his “Educate to Innovate” campaign and emphasized the importance of encouraging students to pursue STEM studies and careers. NASA has developed a wide variety of education programs that use the inherent excitement of space exploration and science to inspire students and generate interest in STEM.

“Programs like this science fair help students develop critical skills and get hands-on experience that will serve them and our nation well in the future,” Bolden said. “These talented students are tomorrow’s science leaders, and their skills will be critical to helping us make an American economy built to last.”

Joining Bolden at the event were NASA’s Associate Administrator for Education Leland Melvin and Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld. Both Melvin and Grunsfeld also are veteran space shuttle astronauts who frequently use their flight experiences as catalysts for engaging students’ interest in space and science. NASA Chief Technologist, Mason Peck, NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati, and Paul Hertz, chief scientist for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, also attended the fair and met with student honorees.

Among the winning science experiments displayed at the White House today were two that related directly to NASA’s mission, including entries from a girls’ rocket team and a FIRST Robotics alliance.

The “Young Women Rocketing to Nationals” team featured Janet and Ana Karen Nieto of Presidio, Texas, who are members of the Presidio High School Rocketry Team that competed as a national finalist in the Team America Rocketry Challenge in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Gwynelle Condino, a 7th grade student at Lucy Franco Middle School in Presidio, is the team’s leader this year.

“A Winning Robotics Alliance, with Astronauts Cheering Them On” team was comprised of John Drake of Schaumburg, Ill., Sean Murphy of Atascadero, Calif., and Eric Bakan of San Jose, Calif. They represented the winning alliance of the 2011 FIRST Robotics Competition Championship and were mentored by engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Two other NASA-related education programs also were represented at today’s event.

Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), is a hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program where students, teachers and scientists worldwide collaborate on investigations of the environment and the Earth system. Participants work in close partnership with NASA and other federal agencies.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) was launched in June 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, in partnership with NanoRacks.

Student teams in grades 5-12 propose microgravity experiments for flight in a research minilab that may be flown to the International Space Station. SSEP is enabled through a space act agreement as part of the International Space Station’s use as a National Laboratory.

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In September 2011, for the 11th mission of their Discovery Program, NASA launched the twin spacecraft GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory), GRAIL A and GRAIL B, which entered the Moon’s orbit during New Year’s weekend. For the first six months of 2012, the spacecraft will produce the most detailed and accurate map of the Moon’s gravitational field yet.

The Moon, the earth’s natural satellite, has the most unique gravitational field of all the other rocky bodies’ in the inner solar system: it is lumpy, and the lumpiest of them all. The surface, which generally affects gravitational fields, is itself lumpy, having various geological structures, such as craters, smooth plains, flat lava flows, and mountains. The surface came to be as it is today because asteroids and other space junk smashed into the natural satellite when it was still forming.

To measure its gravitational field, GRAIL A and GRAIL B will orbit the Moon at a low altitude. This way, their instruments would be more sensitive and will more likely produce accurate results. Orbiting in tandem, they will measure the changes of the distance between each other caused by the differences in strength of the field.

NASA plans for the mission to end in June, but hopes to keep the twin spacecraft studying the Moon for an additional six months to find out additional information about the natural satellite. Through mapping the gravitational field, GRAIL A and GRAIL B can also study the structure of the lithosphere (the crust) and what the Moon is like below the surface. They may then find out if there is presence of a solid core and discover what the Moon’s thermal evolution was like (i.e. how the natural satellite heated and cooled).

If GRAIL A and GRAIL B successfully determined all of this information, we would be given insight as to how the Moon formed.

“This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the Moon,” says Maria Zuber in a NASA press release. Zuber is the GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In turn, we would discover the planetary evolution process of other rocky bodies in the solar system, particularly Earth’s, since the Moon is essentially an entire geological record of the solar system, which is aged 4.5 billion years.

Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, adds in another NASA press release, “NASA greets the new year with a new mission of exploration. The twin GRAIL spacecraft will vastly expand our knowledge of our moon and the evolution of our own planet. We begin this year reminding people around the world that NASA does big, bold things in order to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown.”

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NASA is continuing its strong support for the annual FIRST Robotics Competition, which inspires student interest in science, technology, and mathematics through a challenge to design and build a robot. The agency is awarding grants totaling $1,386,500 for student teams in 37 states to participate in FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

“NASA participation in FIRST puts us on the cutting edge with the leaders of tomorrow,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “NASA’s FIRST volunteers have given tens of thousands of students a crucial mentoring experience and helped them understand what engineers and researchers really do to mount challenging missions of robotic and human exploration. FIRST inspires students to pursue the technical careers of the future – careers that will help America send humans to Mars and reveal the unknown.”

Each FIRST team receives an identical kit of parts and has six weeks to design and build a robot. Other than dimension and weight limitations and other technical restrictions, the look and function of the robot is up to each team. NASA volunteers support many teams throughout the process.

The competition is structured like a professional athletic event and teams compete in an arena the size of a small basketball court. Robots must have offensive and defensive capabilities. Teams collaborate to complete tasks, while simultaneously preventing opposing teams from completing the same activity.

This year, 45 regional competitions will take place in the U.S., along with four additional international competitions in March and April. The FIRST Championship competition will be held in St. Louis in April.

“We were pleased to see the growing interest in these engineering programs, as indicated by the increase in applications this year,” said Dave Lavery, program manager for the NASA Robotics Alliance Project (RAP).  “After a rigorous review process, we were able to select 241 teams for receipt of a grant award.”

NASA plays a significant role in FIRST and other robotics competition programs by increasing access and encouraging young people to investigate careers in the sciences and engineering. The competitively selected cooperative agreement for the grants is funded by RAP and sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. It is managed by the RAP Project Office at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

NASA founded RAP in 1995 to supply engineering expertise for robotics and engineering competition programs such as FIRST. During the past 16 years, RAP has awarded about $45 million to academic and non-profit organizations across the nation to stimulate America’s intellectual capability in fields tied to robotics engineering. Each NASA center participates in RAP and also contributes its respective expertise, funding and other resources.

NASA has participated in the FIRST program since 1995, and is the largest single participant. Other participants have included Motorola, General Motors, Ford, Boeing, and Johnson & Johnson.

The FIRST program was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people, their schools and communities. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST is a non-profit organization that designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills, while motivating young people to pursue academic opportunities.

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