more at: http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/nasa_news.html "Published on Oct 23, 2015 - The stars were out for the second-ever White House Astronomy Night on Oct. 19. Attendees included NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, Deputy Administrator Dava Newman and Associate Administrator for Science, John Grunsfeld – as well as NASA’s commercial crew astronauts, who are training for future spaceflights from American soil on commercial spacecraft. President Obama hosted the event to give students an opportunity to stargaze and to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Math or (STEM) education. Also, Social chat with Commercial Crew astronauts, Space station spacewalks previewed, SLS Critical Design Review completed, Heat shield testing completed and Exoplanet Week!" Public domain film from NASA. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bolden Charles Frank Bolden, Jr. (born August 19, 1946) is the current Administrator of NASA, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, and former NASA astronaut. A 1968 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he became a Marine Aviator and test pilot. After his service as an astronaut, he became Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen at the Naval Academy. On May 23, 2009, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Bolden as NASA Administrator and Lori Garver as Deputy NASA Administrator. Bolden was confirmed by the Senate on July 15, 2009. He is the first African American to head the agency on a permanent basis. Bolden is also the virtual host of the Shuttle Launch Experience attraction at Kennedy Space Center and serves on the board of directors for the Military Child Education Coalition... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) is a multiphase space technology development program, funded by the U.S. government, and administered by NASA. The program is intended to stimulate development of privately operated crew vehicles to low Earth orbit. It is run by the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO) at NASA. William Gerstenmaier, NASA's Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations for NASA, has stated that most likely only one competitor will be chosen to deliver crew to the International Space Station. This spacecraft is expected to begin doing so around 2017. In the first phase of the program, NASA provided a combined $50 million in 2010 to five American companies, intended to foster research and development into human spaceflight concepts and technologies in the private sector. A second set of Commercial Crew Development proposals were solicited by NASA in October 2010 for technology development project durations of up to 14 months. In April 2011, NASA announced that they would award up to nearly $270 million to four companies as they meet their CCDev 2 objectives. NASA awarded Space Act Agreements for the third phase, named CCiCap, in August 2012 and is to last until 2014. CCiCap is followed by CCtCap with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 15 contracts. The CCtCap FAR contracts forming the fourth and final phase were awarded to SpaceX and Boeing in September 2014...

• published: 23 Oct 2015
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