Here’s a couple of short blasts from the world of space transportation.

At the recent rollout of the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane in Mojave, California, one topic that got little in the way of chatter: what’s the status on the engine that’s to power SpaceShipTwo?

SpaceDev of Poway, California has just announced that it has signed a multi-year contract with Scaled Composites, to assist Scaled in development of a production rocket motor for the passenger-carrying SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket plane.

Under the new contract, SpaceDev will be the lead rocket motor team member for SpaceShipTwo and will collaborate with Scaled’s internal design team to develop a production ready hybrid rocket motor. SpaceDev will provide engineering services to refine the design of the hybrid rocket motor being developed by Scaled Composites, as well as providing the development, manufacture and integration of key rocket motor system components.

Also, SpaceDev will be carrying out ground tests on those motor components, working to assist Scaled in the full-scale rocket test program both on the ground and during SpaceShipTwo flight tests.

The contract — which runs through 2012 — has an initial value of roughly $15 million for work to be primarily completed over the next two years.

In another bit of upstart space news, check out this video clip from my good friend, Bob Martin, a TV reporter at KRQE in Albuquerque.

It’s a smashing bit of reporting about that recent hush-hush Lockheed Martin prototype space plane test at New Mexico’s Spaceport America - and used with permission.

Check out: http://www.krqe.com/Global/story.asp?s=8832212

Lot of buzz regarding a recent Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine story about shooting off astronauts to an asteroid - presented as an “alternate vision” for the next president - perhaps altering the trajectory of NASA’s return of footprints on the Moon. An upcoming conference is to thrash out the idea in greater detail, noted the story.

This morning I emailed the NASA folks for any reaction - and got this response authored by the chief of NASA, Mike Griffin, in response to the Aviation Week & Space Technology story.

“I have noted on many occasions that, at present NASA funding levels, our budget is sufficient to support a variety of excellent space programs, but that it cannot support all of them. Balanced choices must be made. But they cannot be continually remade if there is to be progress,” Griffin explained.

“Those who are organizing this conference have long favored choices other than those put forth in the Vision for Space Exploration and subsequently authorized by the Congress. Their rejection of the Moon as an important destination for mankind, their emphasis on the early use of the Lagrange Points in a new space architecture, and their advocacy for early missions to the near-Earth asteroids (NEO) and to Mars are well known and long standing. These views were summarized in a report issued by the International Academy of Astronautics in July 2004. Their opposition to the International Space Station continues unremitting. One struggles to understand how the future international and commercial partnerships they advocate will come to pass if existing treaty-level commitments are not kept,” Griffin said.

“What is not mentioned in the Aviation Week article is that the questions to be raised at this conference have been asked and answered. The organizer’s views, and many others, were amply considered and thoroughly debated in the two years that elapsed between President Bush’s announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration in January 2004, and the strongly bipartisan ratification of the goals of the Vision in the NASA Authorization Act of December, 2005. As goes without saying, NASA will execute the law of the land. Until and unless the Congress provides new and different authorization for NASA, the law of the land specifies that we will complete the International Space Station, retire the Shuttle, design and build a new spaceflight architecture, return to the Moon in a manner supporting a ’sustained presence’, and prepare the way for Mars,” Griffin explained.

“We are doing those things as quickly and efficiently as our appropriated funding allows. System designs for the early elements have been completed, contracts have been let, and consistently solid progress is being made with a minimum of unexpected difficulty. True, the available budget is less than what was once promised, and progress is therefore slower than all of us would prefer. But applying resources in the right direction, irrespective of pace, is always productive, and we are doing that. Ares and Orion as they are presently taking form are the building blocks for any human future beyond low Earth orbit (LEO),” the NASA chief pointed out.

“As I have often stated, human missions to NEOs have no stronger advocate than I, and I hope that a future Congress will add such authorization to future guidance for NASA, without altering other goals. But in other respects, I believe that the 2005 Authorization Act for NASA remains the finest policy framework for U.S. civil space activities that I have seen in forty years. In particular, I believe that to venture into deep space beyond the Moon with what will be our first step beyond LEO in more than fifty years, whether to an asteroid or to Mars, is riskier than it needs to be. Returning to the Moon and consolidating the gains to be made thereby is properly on the path toward NEOs and Mars. We should stay the present course as laid out in the Act,” Griffin said.

“The conference organizers have assigned sole responsibility for our new civil space exploration strategy to President Bush, ignoring the hugely bipartisan — actually non-partisan — support it has received in Congress. In fact, the principal features of the Vision for Space Exploration, and the subsequent 2005 Authorization Act, are directly traceable to the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board [CAIB]. President Bush acted on those recommendations in his proposal to Congress. No such far-reaching proposal should be adopted without debate. That debate was had, in 2003, ‘04, and ‘05, and it was fulsome. From it came a unifying plan for civil space, and the best legislative guidance NASA has ever had,” Griffin stated.

“No plan can fully satisfy all the many constituencies we have in what I wish were a true ’space community’. but as the CAIB noted, it would be far worse to continue the prior multi-decade lack of any strategic plan, to continue dithering and debating and inevitably widening the gap between shuttle retirement and the availability of new systems. The 2005 Authorization Act codifies a great strategic plan for civil space exploration. Now is the time for space advocacy groups to come together in support of it,” Griffin concluded.

Meanwhile, conference organizers of the workshop have notified Aviation Week & Space Technology that the recent story created a misperception - that the workshop to be held at Stanford University had already decided upon a new path for the human and robotic exploration of space, one that might call for pushing the Ctrl-Alt-Delete button on a NASA Moon base.

Not so, explains Scott Hubbard of Stanford University and Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society.

“We wish to make it clear that the purpose of the workshop is to examine critically the Vision for Space Exploration in order to prepare for future space policy considerations in a new Administration and new Congress,” states the letter to the magazine provided to SPACE.com.

“We have deliberately included a wide range of participants with disparate views, including those who would maintain the status quo. We personally do not know what the conclusions of the workshop will be - or even if there will be a definitive consensus,” the clarifying letter notes in part, underscoring the point that the workshop has “no predetermined conclusions.”

You know, when I first heard that J.J. Abrams was doing the next retcon-ed Star Trek movie with a trip to Starfleet Academy I got a little squeamish. Let’s face it, Mission Impossible III was “Alias” with a prettier lead. Still, the first teaser trailer is up and it’s all nerd-bump-inducing. Go HERE to see it as I can’t seem to embed it.

Scientists plan to make “cybrids” by putting human DNA into cow eggs.

The British government gave the go-ahead this week for two separate groups to experiment with the process. Scientists will “inject human DNA into empty eggs from cows, to create embryos known as cytoplasmic hybrids that are 99.9 per cent human in genetic terms,” according to The Times of London.

The government had planned to ban such cybrid research, but scientists protested, leading to the reversal.

U.S. Senators Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) lashed out today. Last November, they introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act, S. 2358, to prevent the crossing of humans and animals because they say it unethically “[blurs] the line between human and animal.”

The argument is an emotional and speculative one, scientists would say, conjuring images of lab freaks gone wild that no reputable researcher envisions. Nobody has suggested the cybrids be raised and let loose in London (or Manhattan, for that matter, where the movie will likely be set. I mean, whoever heard of London being taken over by cybrids?).

“Creating human-animal hybrids could irrevocably harm the basic human genetic makeup and intentionally or unintentional change what it means to be human,” Brownback said in a statement today. “What was once only science fiction is now becoming a reality, and we need to ensure that experimentation and subsequent ramifications do not outpace ethical discussion and societal decisions. History does not look kindly on those who violate the dignity of the human person. The UK’s decision to allow the creation of human-animal hybrids is short-sighted, and further underscores our need here at home to enact the common-sense Brownback-Landrieu Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act.”

If Brownback and Landrieu have their way, science might proceed quite differently on the two sides of the pond.

“Here in the United States, we simply cannot open the door to the unethical blending of humans and animals, which the British government seems intent on doing,” Landrieu said. “It creates an unnatural species and is a clear line we cannot cross. This unsound science also presents potential global health hazards due to increased risk of disease spreading to humans from animals.”

Meanwhile, U.S. scientists have produced embryos that are clones of two men, another possible step toward useful stem cells for research.

They used “ordinary cells from an adult human can be used to make cloned embryos mature enough to produce stem cells, the researchers said. But because they haven’t produced those stem cells yet, experts reacted coolly,” according to AP.

All this sort of work is intended to lead, eventually, to disease cures by creating alternatives to human embryonic stem cells that will assist in other research. Embryonic stem cells can become any cell in the body, so the idea is that tapping their potential could help build replacement organs or infuse a person with fresh brain or blood cells or simply provide vital information about how diseases work. Much of the potential remains unproven and cures for intractable ills could be years away. But scientists agree that embryonic stem cells are a crucial line of research to pursue in efforts to cure Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and others.

• Lab Freaks: Vote for Your Favorite

The National Science Board rolled out Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) 2008 today - a biennial report on the state of science and engineering research and education in the United States.

The report also documents public attitudes about science and technology - and there are some observations — albeit few of them — regarding space.

For example, the report notes that, while support for federal research investment is at historically high levels, other kinds of federal spending generate even stronger public support.

“Support for increased spending is greater in numerous program areas, including education (73%), health care (72%), assistance to the poor (68%), environmental protection (67%), and Social Security (61%),” the report explains.

And here’s a kick-in-the-head for space fans: “Scientific research ranks about on a par with mass transit (38%) and well ahead of space exploration (14%) and assistance to foreign countries (10%) in the proportion of the U.S. population favoring increased spending.”

The SEI report also points out that television and the Internet are Americans’ primary sources of science and technology information. While the Internet is favored below the TV tube for info, “to learn about specific scientific issues, more than half of Americans choose the Internet as their main information source.”

Regarding environmental quality here on Earth, the report observes that in 2007, 43% of Americans expressed “strong concern” about the environment, up from 35% in 2005. However, concern about the environment ranks somewhere in the middle among 12 issues. Global warming has recently become more prominent among environmental issues of concern to the public, the report states, although it still ranks 8th among 10 issues.

The Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 is prepared by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Science Resources Statistics on behalf of the National Science Board.

Dig into the just-released report by dialing in your Internet feed-line to:

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/

German art historians say they’ve put a name to the famous face and settled the debate of the identity of the “Mona Lisa” once and for all.

According to this Reuters article, experts at the Heidelberg University library have found conclusive evidence that the woman in the famous Da Vinci painting was in fact Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, whom many historians had long thought was the subject of the portrait.

The German historians found scribbles in the margins of a book by a Florentine city official who mentions that Da Vinci was currently working on a portrait of Lisa Gherardini.

For other insights into the mysteries of the smiling woman in the painting, check out our article on why the “Mona Lisa”’s smile changes and just why the painting is so famous.