Surprises and Shocks

• NEW DISCOVERIES
• NEW PLAYERS APPEAR
• FALLING SATELLITE CRISES
• RANDOM FAILURES
• HUMAN WEAKNESSES
• STRANGE SIGHTINGS

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Jim Oberg - 'Propulsion Consumables' console 1981

Jim's Mission Control Center access badge, April 1981

OMS/RCS Propulsion Console Back Room, STS-1 Launch Propulsion team: Fred Frere, Jim, Lt Joe Squatrito (behind), Sandy Mangold (front) Flight Computer team: Gerry Knori, Andy Algate

Accidental STS-1 Alumni Reunion (2008) -- Jim Oberg, Colonel Joe Squatrito, Wayne Hale

Jim's 'News Media' Badge (1981)

Another view of STS-1 prop team: Front, Charlie Young, Fred Frere Back: College Kid, Tony Ceccacci, Gary Coen, Wayne Hale

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Space Policy Options

06/15/2010 - MSNBC: "How risky is it to rely on Russian spaceflight?"

12/13/2010 - AP: Russia's Soyuz soon to be only lifeline to space

'Spectrum' (April 2010): "Wesley T. Huntress: Author of NASA's New Strategy"

MSNBC (Oberg): The right and wrong stuff for space cooperation

MSNBC.com (Oberg): "Why private 'space taxis' may not be as hard as many think"

09/11/2009 - Which way for NASA? ‘Flexible Path’ concept may work out best

Discussing Jim's Article here

08/17/2009 - Space Review: How To Make Man-to-Mars Less Impossible

Final chapter from ‘Star-Crossed Orbits’ (2002) on perils of partnerships in space

The ‘Huntress Report’ – “Stepping Stones to Mars”

‘The Mars Conquest’ (2001) on the value of human Mars settlement

01/14/2004 - USA TODAY: “Think outside moon-Mars box: Maybe visit asteroid”

Human Asteroid Missions for Planetary Defense (1998 speech)

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Baykonur Cosmodrome VIP Tours

Expert Guidance on Planning, Preparation, and Escorting

Are you going to Russia’s Baykonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to attend the launch of a manned ‘Soyuz’ spaceship, a commercial communications satellite, a scientific probe, or any other reason? The long-mysterious and super-secret spaceport has become a mecca for ‘space tourists’ of the 21st Century, but understanding what you will see, or even what you are actually seeing once you get there, is hindered by decades of secrecy, by the fog of cultural barriers, and by the impenetrability of “technical jargon” associated with “rocket science”. Now a solution is available – a world expert on penetrating “Soviet space secrets” is available to expand the value of your experience. Jim Oberg can triple the appreciation of your experience by careful pre-trip organization and briefings, and as desired by personal interpretative and explanatory services on site. For more details, go HERE.

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Space disasters still have lessons to teach

As shuttle era winds down, future rocketeers must develop safety culture

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Recent TV appearances on national space policy
(still working out the techniques of Skype Webcam from his own office)

• Neil Armstrong to testify on NASA's behalf
• NASA's "Puffin" personal VTOL aircraft

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NEW: Dec 16, 2010 -- Did Russia Lose Comm with New Soyuz?

• 12/16/2010 - MSNBC: "Space Comm glitch causes a scare"
• 12/16/2010: Russia TV interview on communications glitch

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Latest Russian Spaceship Upgrade: The "Digital Soyuz"

• A Digital Soyuz -- Russian crew spacecraft replaces its computer and analog parts for a new mission Spectrum magazine / September 2010
• perspective: The 2002 'Soyuz-TMA' Upgrade

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Mysterious Chinese 'Space Rendezvous' Test?

• Brian Weedon story
• perspective: NASA's 'DART' debacle -- coming soon
• China continues satellite maneuvers // MSNBC, Alan Boyle on Oberg input

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Is Russia's Cosmonaut Training Center Collapsing?

• 11/16/2010 - Popular Science article
• Photo Tour of 'Star City' polit.ru four photo essays:
  http://www.polit.ru/news/2010/03/04/cpk_50.popup.html
  http://www.polit.ru/news/2010/03/05/cpk_50_1.html
  http://www.polit.ru/news/2010/03/09/cpk50_2.html
  http://www.polit.ru/news/2010/03/10/cpk50_3.html

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01/19/2010 - IEEE Spectrum: Russia's Ailing ICBM Program

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04/2010 - IEEE Spectrum: U.S. Air Force Launches Secret Flying Twinkie

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Jim interviews father-son spacers Owen and Richard Gariott

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Completing the International Space Station

Jim with first ESA commander of the ISS (Oct-Dec 2009), Frank Dewinne

• 10/14/2010 - SPECTRUM: Soyuz damaged during delivery
• 03/31/2010 - MSNBC: "Russians report snag in space safety system"
• 12/10/2010 - Popular Science: How Would NASA Rescue An Astronaut Who Floated Away From The International Space Station?
• August 2010 Coolant Pump Repair Spacewalks -- A New Paradign
     'Spectrum' article (August 6)
• Podcast
• The "Big Fourteen" Station Crew Spacewalk Repairs -- coming soon
• June 15, 2010 // How risky is it to rely on Russian spaceflight?
  
• 10/01/2008 - MSNBC.com: US-Russian Space Partnership Works as Reluctant Co-Dependence
• “Making Room” (6-person crew)
• Giving the Robot Arm a Hand (DEXTRE)
• NASA Has Learned Columbia’s Lessons
• How ‘Flight Rules’ Shield Shuttle From Harm
• The Space Station's woes show what's wrong with NASA and hints at how to put it right
• Terrorist Threat to Baykonur Launch site?
• June 2007: Station Computer Crisis
• Dec 2007: Follow-Up – Near-Fatal Computer Crisis (Spaceflight)
• NASA’s most Dramatic Spacewalks
• Spacesuit Smoke alarm (Nov 13, 2007)
• 'Ad Astra', 2007: 'Parom' -- Russia's Replacement for the Shuttle at the ISS

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Russia's 500-Day Mars Mission Simulation

About the simulation

Photos

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Jim’s Speaking Program for 2012 Filling Up

Conferences, conventions, industry seminars, university activities, private groups, educational and hobby programs, and other audiences of any size seeking entertaining and informative talks on various aspects of outer space are encouraged to contact Jim Oberg soon for their necessary scheduling of talks in the coming academic year. His expanded repertory of topics now includes several new offerings and updated old favorites. These programs can be tailored to specific length and focus needs.

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“There’s no soy ooze in ‘Soyuz’” (pronouncing Russian space terms)

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09/2007 - MSNBC.com: Satellite to test special deliveries from space [tether!!]

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Aerospace History Controversies Continue

• USA-193 Space Intercept Controversy
• 1988 - Dead Cosmonauts, Gemini UFOs and Others
  
• Korean Airlines 007 Shootdown (1983)

  In recent years, press coverage in Moscow suggests a reversion to the Soviet-era "spyflight" accusations, and Putin has proclaimed he's had enough "history that casts Russia in a bad light", but expanded Moscow-Seoul contacts would argue against retrograde Russian officials from making a big deal of reopening this wound.

  • Example of recent Russian renewed 'spyflight' acusations
  • Jim's research on debunking the 'spyflight' propaganda
  • Discovery Channel program on 'Unsolved History' (July 15, 2004) features Jim's work
  • Mass media gullibility over KAL-007 ‘blame-America’ theories is shameful (1983)

   

Space History Controversies Revived:

** Gagarin and the ‘secret cosmonauts’

• ‘Phantoms of Space’ (Jim debunks the ‘secret fatalities; rumors), 1975
• The ‘Ilyushin Was First’ Myth Debunked (Mark Wade, Encyclopedia Astronautica, 1999)
• Robert G Kennedy III comment: produced by “a Scientology front organization”?
  [Jim: “I have not been able to confirm this claim”]
• New Book: The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team: Their Lives and Legacies
  Jim’s comment: “Highly, HUGELY recommended!!!”
• Jim’s statement: “Why I Don’t Believe the Judica-Cordeglia Stories”
• Fortean Times Article (July 2008) on ‘secret dead cosmonauts’
• Jim’s book chapter (1988) on ‘Dead Cosmonauts’

** Another politicized ‘herstory’ of the “Mercury-13” women

• Tanya Lee Stone on CSPAN (March 13, 2009)
• My basic objections (‘anonymous’)
• Debate at ‘Amazon’
• Jim’s essay, ‘Setting the Record Straight’
• Jim on genuine women’s achievements in space: “Two commanders meet”
• The ‘Propaganda Mission’ of Valentina Tereshkova (1963 to present)
• May 18, 2007: “Controversy with Mercury 13 women”
  

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Jim summarizes world space activities on ‘Russia Today’

Jim discusses how a secret Moscow missile test caused a major Soviet UFO panic
Physics Forums on this case: “This guy’s work was really impressive. I wouldn't have known where to start. This so beats our speculating about dubious news stories.”

Dara Brown, MSNBC, interviews Jim on satellite collision (Feb 2009)

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Russia To Continue Space Tourism Flights Post-2010

• READ MORE
  

Commercial Space Tourism Advances

• Genesis-1, major step towards a 'space hotel'
• Jim Is First American Journalist at New ‘Yasniy’ Launch Site in Siberia
  On June 28, 2007 Jim was at the new 'Kosmotras' satellite launch base at Yasniy, Orenburg Region, Siberia, to watch a 'Dnepr' rocket carry the Bigelow Aerospace "Genesis-II" space module prototype into orbit. He will be writing about this experience for several magazine clients in the months to come.

  NEW Photo essay of the trip.

  'Spectrum', February 2007
  "Inflatable Space Habitats -- the Bigelow Plan"
  
  MSNBC, January 15, 2007
  "Next Bigelow Inflatable Launch Delayed"

• ‘Yasniy Base’
• Yasniy, Siberia – Watching the launch
• Converting ISS into a Space Hotel

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Interesting People

• Oleg Kotov -- first of the next generation of cosmonaut commanders
• Max Faget -- America's Unsung 'Chief Designer of Spaceships'
  • More on Faget
  • More on Faget
• Robert Lawrence -- America's forgotten first black astronaut
  • More on Lawrence
• John Houbolt -- Designer of Apollo's pathway to the Moon
• Valery Tokarev -- the unlikeliest cosmonaut
• Vladimir Syromyatnikov -- Russia's "Doctor of Space-Docking"
• Space commanders Peggy and Pam -- women in charge
• Geoffrey Perry -- space sleuth (and teacher) extraordinaire
• Hermann Oberth -- one of the men who 'invented' space flight
  • More on Oberth
• Jerry Whittredge ---- Bogus Astronaut

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Interplanetary Exploration

• ROBOT magazine story
• Robots on Planets -- Arms and Wheels
• Mars 'Phoenix' Lander Suspense
• DAWN mission to the asteroid belt
• Japan's Moon Orbiter Arrives
• Running the Mars Rovers
  update
• Huygens Capsule on Titan -- How It Avoided Doom
• Inspiration from the Nozomi Asteroid Mission
• Russians Prepare 500-Day Mars Ground Simulation
• First Human Step Beyond the Moon -- An Asteroid?
• A Ferry Between Earth and Mars (with Buzz Aldrin)
  

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Preparing for Human Flight to Mars

• Russia Prepares Ground-Based Mars Mission Simulation
• Mars Medical Emergency Simulation
• Outbound to Mars -- No Time for Boredom

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Novosti, February 27, 2007: New Kourou Launch Pad Can Conduct Manned Flights

News item (my translation), quoting Anatoliy Perminov, head of the Russian Space Agency, while visiting the European launch center at Kourou, French Guyana: "Yes, of course, over the long term, the ‘Soyuz-ST’ [booster] which will be launched from Kourou can be used also for manned launches. This promising manned transport system, developed now together with the European partners, can be used for organizng, from Kourou, the launches of manned spacecraft."

See March-April 2007, LAUNCH magazine feature article on
the future of human orbital missions launched from South America

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June 6, 2006

Test flight for space hotel delayed

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Soyuz Launch -- Up Close and Personal


‘Every launch is like the first one’
What it's like to witness a spaceship set off for the space station

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Jim returns from triumphant 'Earth Orbit' educational program for American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY).

This program involved fourteen travelers who visited the Hayden Planetarium, the NASA Goddard Space Center, the National air & Space Museum, Capa Canaveral
and the Kennedy Space Center, then Russian space sites such as various museums (including some usually closed to
the public), the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, and the Baykonur Cosmodrome, where they attended the Soyuz TMA-7 blastoff on October 1.

A more detailed report is in preparation but here are a few photos from the expedition courtesy of Josette Dominguez.

(Sep 22) With Story Musgrave at the Saturn/Shuttle ‘Vertical Assembly Building’ (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida	(Sep 26) Examining SFOG canister (‘Solid Fuel Oxygen Generator’) inside Mir mockup at ‘Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center’. A unit like this one malfunctioned in February 1997 and nearly killed six crewmen, including a visiting american astronaut.
(Sep 26) Peering into Soyuz ‘Orbital Module’ trainer at ‘Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center’, Star City, NE of Moscow	(Sep 29) At edge of Soyuz flame pit an hour after booster installation on the launch pad, two days prior to blastoff. L-R: Jim, Jo Dominguez, Doug Grimes (MirCorp Travel), Alicia Stevens (Discovery Tours, AMNH).

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Jim Covers Shuttle’s Return-to-Flight’ for NBC

• Chronicles of the Long Climb Back
• Assessing the New NASA ‘Safety Culture’
• The mission: Streaming Video of Jim at Work
• The mission: Jim’s Filed Stories
• What Comes Next?

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Jim spends an hour on National Public Radio discussing spaceflight
(Real player required)

"Tuesday, Jul. 19, 2005, 3:00 PM // Wisconsin Public Radio, "Ideas Network" Ben Merens: While NASA engineers continue to examine the Space Shuttle, Ben Merens and his guest examine the planned mission, as well as the history, and future of the shuttle program.

Guest: Jim Oberg, former Space Shuttle mission control engineer."

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“Flaws in the ‘NASA Safety Culture’ and Their Lessons for Earthside Safety”

This presentation shows how many notorious space disasters were not due to inherent hazards of space, but were due to violating well-known principles of hi-tech safety. It provides explanations for the Challenger and Columbia shuttle catastrophes and for the 1999 Mars robot fleet disaster...

More...

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"Curmudgeon's Corner" space blog names Oberg "best space reporter" of 2004.

Mark Whittington at 'Curmudgeon's Corner', a blog that covers technology and spaceflight and other topics, put together his year in space awards for 2004, and the full text is on his home page.

"Best space reporter. James Oberg, for actually knowing of what he writes and talks about,
which is not necessarily true for all reporters on the space beat."

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***Notice to Would-Be Whistleblowers***

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07/06/2004 - Cosmonaut Nikolayev's Body Reported Hijacked By Politician

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Read the first two chapters of Jim's classic
1981 book on "terraforming", NEW EARTHS

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See Jim's Latest on MSNBC.COM's Sci-Tech Page

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NEW PAMPHLET:

“Toward a Theory of Space Power”, James Oberg, remarks delivered May 20, 2003, Washington Roundtable on Science & Public Policy, sponsored by the George C. Marshall Institute, Washington, DC. 28 pages. $10.00 postage paid ($12.00 outside North America). A recent book by Everett Dolman, Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age, speaks of the importance of space and space-faring nations and has high praise for Oberg’s work. Dolman writes, “Strategy, grand strategy in particular, is not simply the efficient military application of force. Since grand strategy is ultimately political in nature, that is to say the ends of national strategy are inextricably political, yet the means or dimensions of strategy are not limited.” He goes on to define six or seven things that make up a grand strategy, and concludes by saying, “To date, only James Oberg’s Space Power Theory [now out of print with an expanded version in preparation], a comprehensive effort commissioned by the United States Space Command, approaches the requirements laid out above.”

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