ISS crew told to evacuate immediately

thinq_

Debris threat sends crew heading for Soyuz

Reports are circulating that the six-man crew of the International Space Station has been forced to evacuate as ground stations track fast-moving debris heading its way.

Numerous sources are reporting that the ISS crew has been ordered to immediately evacuate the station and head to the Soyuz escape craft as ground crews treck dangerous debris heading towards the facility.

If the facility is hit, its structure could be damaged in such a way as to allow the atmosphere to escape into the vacuum of space.

So far, there has been no official word on how serious the threat, which is similar to a 'red debris' concern that prompted a 2009 evacuation, actually is.

We will update this story as more information becomes available.

UPDATE 1424:

While there is still no official word on the matter, CNN's R. A. Greene has reported on Twitter: "International Space Station briefly evacuated because of space debris; situation now over, everyone OK."

UPDATE 1512:

Speaking to thinq_, chairman of the Reading Astronomical Society John Talbot confirmed that the debris passed without incident, and that the evacuation was merely a precaution. "The debris missed the ISS and the crew returned after about 30 minutes in the Soyuz," he explained. "NASA has coincidentally been discussing the evacuation procedures in case of emergency for the upcoming final visit of the Space Shuttle on Twitter this afternoon.

"The space around the ISS is constantly monitored for possible space debris," he added, "as a large impact could have devastating consequences. Occasionally bits of debris can 'sneak' up and be detected too late for the ISS to take evasive action. On these occasions the crew has to 'evacuate' just in case."

Talbot also confirmed that today's evacuation was similar to that which occurred in 2009. "In March 2009 a piece of space debris - possibly a discarded piece of the ISS itself - was detected in a possible collision course with the ISS. The ISS can manouevre itself out of the way of this kind of threat given enough warning, but it was too late on this occasion. The crew evacuated into the Soyuz spacecraft which is docked to the ISS. If the ISS was impacted it could lead to loss of atmosphere on board and endanger the lives of the crew. In a worst case scenario," he concluded, "the crew could return to Earth on the Soyuz."

NASA Denies Entry To Chinese Journalists For Shuttle Launch

Space Travel

U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, kicking off its 25th and final mission. The event was important to the eyes of media and scientists in China because the shuttle carries the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) particle detector, mankind's most ambitious effort to date to explore the universe' origin with Nobel laureate physicist Samuel Ting as the program's principal scientist.

The 7,000-kg AMS worth 2 billion U.S. dollars will be placed in the International Space Station (ISS) and an international team of more than 600 scientists, including many from China's mainland and Taiwan, have joined Ting's exhausting but respectable AMS program.

China's scientists have played a crucial role in designing and manufacturing some core parts of the device. However, Chinese journalists who hoped to cover the launching of Endeavour were simply denied entry to the site by a ban initiated by Frank Wolf, chairman of the Committee of Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies in the House of Representatives.

The United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revoked the media passes granted to journalists from China due to the ban, or the "Wolf Clause", which was regarded as "discriminative" by even Americans themselves.

On April 15, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law the budget bill for fiscal year 2011 which will end on Sept. 30 after the House of Representatives passed it.

The bill included a clause which bans any China-U.S. joint scientific research activities related to NASA or coordinated by the White House's Science Policy Office.

Under the clause in the budget bill, none of the Congress-approved funds for the U.S. government "may be used for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement, or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company."

It also applies the limitation "to any funds used to effectuate the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilized" by NASA.

As a result, Chinese journalists were denied the opportunity to make live coverage of the shuttle's blast-off, just as their peers from other countries have done. The Chinese journalists were also kept away from NASA's press conferences.

Obviously, the "Wolf Clause" runs counter to the trend that both China and the United States are trying to push ahead their exchanges and cooperation in science and technology.
During the third round of the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S and ED) held in Washington earlier this month, the two sides published accomplishments of the dialogue, which includes the cooperation in science and technology.

Moreover, China and the U.S. this year renewed their bilateral agreements on scientific and technological cooperation.

The Obama administration also attached importance to the current development and trend of scientific and technological cooperation between China and the U.S. and realized the nature of mutual benefit brought about by such cooperation.

John P.Holdren, director of the Science and Technology Policy Office of the White House, has told Xinhua that the cooperation on science and technology was one of the most dynamic fields in bilateral relations between China and the United States.

The "Wolf Clause" exposed the anxiety of hawkish politicians in the United States over China's peaceful development in recent years, and it also demonstrated their shortsightedness to the whole world.

The "Wolf Clause" was a result of compromise made by Obama to Republicans to avoid possible bankruptcy of the U.S. government.

It is also a concession between U.S. Republicans and Democrats, but the "clause" will not in any way change the trend of the increasingly closer scientific and technological cooperation between China and the U.S.

In fact, the "Wolf Clause" has incurred criticism, even from some U.S. scientists.
Richard Milner, director of Laboratory for Nuclear Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), thought China's contribution to the project was "crucial".

The professor believed that the "Wolf Clause" was a "discriminative decision" and it would eventually hurt the U.S. itself.

As the unpopular clause came into effect, China's journalists became the first victims of the discriminative legislation by being turned away from the Kennedy Space Center.

Although the clause will terminate as the fiscal year 2011 ends in September, Wolf seemed unreconciled and claimed he will work to extend the ban to next year.

Today, while the Chinese and U.S. governments are deepening their cooperation, Wolf acted against the trend with a cold war mentality. This is something that should raise the vigilance of peace-loving people in the world.

Editor's note: This was a machine translated news report from China's Xinhua News Agency, and contains a fair number of grammatical errors. As a couple of reader have alerted us to, these errors make the copy difficult to fully understand. We plan to have an update on this report in the next couple of days from our China Space guy.