His launch on a Soyuz rocket will be the culmination of more than two years of preparation that has seen Luca training in Russia, Canada, Japan, Europe and the US at facilities of the Station partners.

Luca and his crewmates, cosmonaut commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, spent the last few weeks in Moscow, Russia passing their final exams for flying the Soyuz spacecraft. They received their official tickets to the Space Station on 10 May when the Soyuz examination board declared them qualified to fly.

The trip from Moscow to Baikonur is more than 2000 km, roughly five times the distance to their next home in space. Luca's Soyuz will arrive at the orbital outpost in under seven hours - only two hours longer than today's plane journey to the launch site.

The crew will stay at the traditional Cosmonaut Hotel for the last days before launch. Luca, Fyodor and Karen will be quarantined to make sure they do not take any unwanted bacteria or viruses to the Space Station. Family and support personnel such as flight surgeons will be the only people allowed to stay with them.

Cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov, Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy are already on the Station and will welcome the new Expedition when the Soyuz docks on 29 May.

Luca's Volare mission is provided through an agreement with Italy's ASI space agency. His busy schedule of science and maintenance involves two spacewalks to install new equipment and retrieve experiments.

Watch the launch live on 28 May from 20:00 GMT (22:00 CEST) and follow the Volare blog for updates from the mission directors and Luca himself.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Mexico City, Mexico (RIA Novosti) May 22, 2013 - A flash drive with stress-relief software for crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) will be taken to space by Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin soon.

The software was designed by the Russian Union of Nature Photographers, with the assistance of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament.

According to Oleg Panteleyev, who along with other members of the upper chamber assisted the project, said the software is, in fact, a slideshow of thousands of photographs of the nature, accompanied by relaxing music.

"Most importantly, photographs will be synchronized with the current position of the ISS. If the space station flies, for example, above Canada, the software will display Canadian landscapes, as well as birds and animals native to the area. When the ISS is above the Far East, cosmonauts' personal monitors will show images of Far Eastern flora and fauna," Panteleyev told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

"We are convinced that such program will be very useful for astronauts, who are unable to see terrestrial landscapes for months, and of course, miss it," he added.

Yurchikhin, along with Karen Nyberg of the United States and Luca Parmitano of Italy, will fly to space onboard the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft on May 28.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Moscow (AFP) May 19, 2013 - A number of mice and eight gerbils sent into space in a Russian capsule destined to find out how well organisms can withstand extended flights perished during their journey, scientists said Sunday as the month-long mission touched back down on Earth.

Most of the 45 mice sent into orbit -- along with the gerbils and 15 newts -- died on the mission, which nevertheless returned with data that scientists hope will pave the way for a manned flight to Mars.

The animals on board the Bion-M craft died because of equipment failure or due to the stresses of space, scientists said.

The craft itself landed softly early on Sunday with the help of a special parachute system in the Orenburg region about 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) southeast of Moscow.

It was also carrying snails, some plants and microflora.

"This is the first time that animals have been put in space on their own for so long," Vladimir Sychov of the Russian Academy of Sciences announced upon the peculiar crew's return to Earth.

But at the end of the experiment, "less than half of the mice made it -- but that was to be expected," Sychov told Russian news agencies.

"Unfortunately, because of equipment failure, we lost all the gerbils."

The TsSKB-Progress space research centre's department head, Valery Abrashkin, said on the day the mission took off in April that the study was aimed at determining how bodies adapt to weightlessness "so that our organisms survive extended flights".

The space adventure has been widely praised by Russian state media as a unique experiment that no other country has yet pulled off.

Russia last sent mice into space in 2007 for a much shorter duration of 12 days.

France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) space centre said 15 of the 45 mice came from a French research lab that is cooperating with the study.

CNES life science department head Guillemette Gauquelin-Koch said the project took "a further decisive step in human adaptation to weightlessness".

Scientists from both countries said the animals were used as it was impossible to conduct the experiment on the humans who are currently operating the International Space Station (ISS).

They added that the mice would have posed a health risk if simply placed on board the ISS for a month.

The experiment's designers said the tests primarily focused on how microgravity impacts the skeletal and nervous systems as well as organisms' muscles and hearts.

The animals were stored inside five special containers that automatically opened after reaching orbit and closed once it was time to return.

Also on board were over two dozen measuring devices and other scientific objects that measured everything from heart rates and blood pressure to radiation levels.

The capsule spun 575 kilometres (357 miles) above Earth.

Officials at France's CNES said a new mission with microorganisms may be launched by Russia next year.

Russia has long set its sights on Mars and is now targeting 2030 as the year in which it could begin creating a base on the Moon for flights to the Red Planet.

But recent problems with its once-vaunted space programme -- including the embarrassing failure of a research satellite that Moscow tried sending up to one of Mars's moons last year -- have threatened Russia's future exploration efforts.

Russia's trials and tribulations are watched closely by other space-faring nations because the Soyuz rocket on which the animals went up represents the world's only manned link to the constantly-staffed ISS.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Ottawa (AFP) May 16, 2013 - A thud, dirt in the window of his capsule and the fresh smell of spring on the Kazakh steppe: Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recalled Thursday his safe return from a five-month mission to space.

"We hit the Earth just like a car crash," Hadfield told a webcast news conference from NASA headquarters in Houston, Texas, where he has been undergoing tests and readapting to gravity since Tuesday's landing.

"One person is on the bottom (in the Soyuz-TMA capsule), one is on the wall and one is hanging from the ceiling. I was the guy hanging from the ceiling."

Fellow astronaut American Tom Marshburn looked out of the window and saw "dirt and grass, where space had been just moments before," Hadfield said.

And when the hatch was opened, "we could smell the prairie. We could smell the steppe, the Kazakhstan steppe."

"One by one they plucked us out of the capsule and the first true sense of being home was a window full of the dirt of the Earth and the smell of spring and the growing grasses in Kazakhstan."

Hadfield returned to Earth with Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, after a mission to the International Space Station saw him shoot to global stardom, captivating people worldwide with his Twitter microblog.

Russian state television pictures had shown the giant white parachute of the Soyuz capsule unfurling successfully after re-entry followed by the capsule touching down and sending a plume of dust into the sky.

The Soyuz capsule landed on its side, but this is a relatively common occurrence. Its outer shell was charred from the heat of more than 3,000 degrees Celsius (5,432 Fahrenheit) as it shot through the atmosphere.

Right after landing, Hadfield said: "I could feel the weight of my lips and tongue and I had to change how I was talking. I hadn't realized I'd learned to talk with a weightless tongue.

"So the subtle things and the big things are taking some getting used to. They're coming back one by one. I'm just trying to learn how to walk... I'm not ready to run."

"Weightlessness is just a superpower. You can fly, effortlessly. And it's a wonderful, liberating feeling," he said.

"But the reality of life for everyone is here on Earth. And this is where all the people that I love are. And so I'm readapting to it physically and mentally and we'll get there soon."

Hadfield likened his symptoms to aging.

"My blood vessels have hardened. My cardiovascular system has changed. How my blood regulates blood pressure, all those things have changed rapidly and now they're readapting."

Over the coming weeks, he said NASA scientists will be "poking and prodding" him for insights on astronauts' physical trauma.

"I'm a full-sized human lab rat," he said.

From space, Hadfield captured the public imagination with regular updates on Twitter that gave an unprecedented insight into daily life in space and access to spectacular images taken from the ISS.

Tweeting under the Star Trek-like name @Cmdr_Hadfield, the astronaut posted spectacular pictures of the Earth seen from the sky and also insights on the mundane aspects of eating and washing in space.

He and his team held the first live news conference from space, recorded the first music video in space -- a cover of David Bowie's classic "Space Oddity" -- conducted a record number of scientific experiments on the ISS and more.

Hadfield, who was commander of the station, also oversaw a dramatic spacewalk at the weekend performed by Marshburn and Chris Cassidy to halt an ammonia leak.

Using the power of social networks more effectively than anyone in the history of manned space flight, Hadfield has arguably become the world's most prominent astronaut since the days of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

He inspired the public at a time when some scientists question the need for manned space flight to the ISS amid constant budget pressures.

Hadfield said he delights in the world being able to see and maybe better understand the work and collaboration on board the ISS, "by seeing our star in the sky."

"I was a Cold Warrior, intercepting Soviet bombers in the 80s, and now look where we are. This space station is a wonderful example of how people do things right," he said.

"The experience of leaving Earth is still very new for humanity and the ability to explain it and to share it is growing leaps and bounds due to the technology that's available."

The experience of flying in space is something that should be shared with everyone, he added.

"It is just too good an experience to keep to yourself and the more people that see it and understand... the more the benefits of space exploration will roll back into daily life for all of us."

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Houston TX (SPX) May 15, 2013 - The International Space Station approaches 15 years in orbit later this year. During the first 14 years researchers conducted more than 1,500 investigations, advancing science, technology and education. Investigations on the station began almost as soon as the first component launched in 1998, and the pace and volume of research increased steadily with each milestone.

The most recent International Space Station Utilization Statistics, published on May 2, are a look back at station data from December 1998 to September 2012. This includes 32 crew expeditions to the complex, with an expedition referring to a 3 to 6 month timeframe based on crew rotation. The statistics focus on research and technology investigations, along with education activities conducted in orbit.

"It's really exciting to see the numbers of experiments and investigators that we are carrying through on the International Space Station, and we definitely feel that energy," said NASA's International Space Station Program Scientist Julie Robinson, Ph.D.

"But what's most important is what's going on underneath -- the research discoveries, the hundreds of scientific publications, the publications in key journals, we're really starting to see the space station come into its own."

During an average 6-month period on the station, as many as 200 investigations operate, with between 70 and 100 of them being new studies. Close to 600 journal articles have published on this research, reflecting the growth in scientific findings from space station investigations. Journals that have published articles include Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and Physical Review Letters, among others.

This is the second publication of space station utilization statistics. The first released in 2011 after station's assembly phase completed. The effort to compile the data is worldwide, with inputs submitted to NASA's International Space Station Program Science Office by the five station international partners: Russia, Canada, Japan, Europe and the U.S.

"One thing that really surprises people is how many countries have participated," said Robinson. "What actually happens is that those nations then go out and collaborate with others. There are educational activities that are open to nations around the world, there are research collaborations because science is so international, and because of that we've had a total of 68 countries that have participated so far and that number keeps going up."

The goal of the space station statistics publication is to reach a broad audience with the numbers that tell the story of what microgravity research and the station platform can and have accomplished. Within the physical sciences, a cool flame discovery was made with the Flame Extinguishing Experiment (FLEX).

Vaccine development is under way for salmonella thanks to station biology research. The unique vantage point of the space station continues to provide important Earth observations. These are just a few examples of the work in orbit these statistics represent.

Political leaders, partner agencies and the public all have a stake in the results of and benefits from research performed on the space station. "We compile these statistics to keep a standard baseline across the program," said Robinson.

"People wonder what are you doing and it always helps to have a few numbers to say we are doing these active investigations, these are the disciplines that they are in, this is how much we are flying and this is how much we are doing for our scientific community."

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Moscow (AFP) May 13, 2013 - Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has marked his upcoming departure from the International Space Station by singing a cover version of David Bowie's classic song "Space Oddity" recorded on the orbiting laboratory.

Hadfield, 53, who became a global star during his half-year stint on the ISS with regular Twitter updates that gave insights into daily life in space, is due to touch down back on Earth early Tuesday.

The video of the moustachioed Canadian spaceman crooning his way through the Bowie track has already become a huge hit on YouTube, with over half a million views less than a day after it was first posted.

The video shows Hadfield singing with an impressively melodious voice as he floats through the station in the zero gravity with a guitar which he also plays with some aplomb.

"Ground control to Major Tom/ Lock your Soyuz hatch/ And put your helmet on," he sings, looking wistfully out into deep space through one of the portholes of the ISS.

His lyrics lightly adapted Bowie's 1969 original, somewhat more suggestive, original words which went: "Take your protein pills/ And put your helmet on."

"With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here's Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World," Hadfield wrote on Twitter to introduce the song.

Hadfield's voice and guitar solos were recorded on the station although the backing track was compiled by a team on Earth.

The video provided a fitting climax to Hadfield's six-month mission to the ISS which has shown him use social media more effectively than anyone in the history of space travel.

His imaginative use of Twitter to show how the Earth looks from space has captured the public interest and arguably made him the most recognisable astronaut since Neil Armstrong.

Hadfield won over 800,000 followers on Twitter with spectacular photos and videos from the station and also insights into sometimes the most mundane aspects of daily life in orbit.

His son Evan Hadfield -- who helped put together the video on Earth -- said on Twitter that the film was the first ever music video made in space and took six months to make.

"Did the human race really do this? Wonderful!" commented the hugely popular British science television presenter Professor Brian Cox.

"It only took 6 months to make! :)" Evan Hadfield tweeted back.

Chris Hadfield is due to land back on Earth in Kazakhstan on Tuesday morning at 0231 GMT aboard a Russian Soyuz-TMA capsule along with Russia's Roman Romanenko and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn.

"We're supposed to be sleeping late to be rested for tonight's Soyuz flight home, but I'm finding it hard to sleep in," Hadfield wrote on one of his regular Twitter updates.

Hadfield, who was commander of the station, oversaw a dramatic spacewalk at the weekend performed by Americans Marshburn and Chris Cassidy to halt an ammonia leak.

The "Space Oddity" video is viewable at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

Hadfield's official biography published by the Canadian Space Agency lists a seemingly endless range of earth-bound interests including "skiing, playing guitar, singing, riding, writing, running, and playing volleyball and squash."

Raised on a corn farm in southern Ontario, Hadfield become a top fighter pilot for the Canadian air force before being selected from over 5,000 people in 1992 to be one of four new Canadian astronauts.

This is already his third space mission, after flying with the US shuttle to the now defunct Russian Mir station in 1995 and to the ISS in April 2001.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Moscow (AFP) May 14, 2013 - Canadian spaceman Chris Hadfield on Tuesday returned to Earth along with two other astronauts after a half-year mission to the International Space Station that saw him shoot to global stardom through his Twitter microblog.

Hadfield landed safely in the Kazakh steppe along with American Tom Marshburn and Russian Roman Romanenko aboard a Russian Soyuz-TMA capsule that had left the space station earlier Tuesday morning, Moscow mission control said.

Russian state television pictures showed the giant white parachute of the Soyuz capsule unfurling successfully after re-entry and the capsule then touching down in the Kazakh steppe, sending a plume of dust upwards into the sky.

The Soyuz touched down at 0231 GMT in the steppe south of the central Kazakh city of Karaganda. The Soyuz landed on its side rather than vertically, but this is a relatively common occurence.

On a sunny spring morning, all three astronauts were then successfully extracted from the capsule by recovery teams who rushed to the scene in helicopters.

They were then placed in special chairs amid the long steppe grasses, covered in special thermal blankets and offered tea by the ground crews. All three appeared in good health.

The trio were then whisked away to a medical tent for checks and would later be taken by helicopter to Karaganda. Romanenko will then fly on to Moscow while Hadfield and Marshburn will be taken by NASA to Houston.

Hadfield captured the public imagination with regular updates on Twitter that gave an unprecedented insight into daily life in space and access to spectacular images taken from the ISS.

In a fitting climax to his mission, Hadfield posted a cover version of the David Bowie classic "Space Oddity" that showed him singing and even playing the guitar aboard the station.

The impressively-performed video became an immediate hit on YouTube and on Tuesday morning barely two days after it was first posted had garnered almost five million views.

Using the power of social networks more effectively than anyone in the history of manned space flight, Hadfield has now arguably become the world's most prominent astronaut since the days of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

He has also blazed a new trail for how astronauts can inspire the public at a time when some scientists question the need for manned space flight to the ISS amid constant budget pressures.

Tweeting under the Star Trek-like name Cmdr_Hadfield, the astronaut posted spectacular pictures of the Earth seen from the sky and also insights on the mundane aspects of eating and washing in space.

"Hadfield captured the world's attention," the Canadian space agency said in a statement after the landing.

It said his outreach work has "reminded the world that space exploration is not only about looking beyond but also about learning about Earth."

Hadfield was naturally unable to tweet or access the Internet during the descent back to earth in the cramped Soyuz capsule although his son Evan maintained a running Twitter commentary on the descent.

His final tweet from space was a spectacular image of the sun glinting over the Earth as it rose. "Spaceflight finale: To some this may look like a sunset. But it's a new dawn," Hadfield wrote.

Raised on a corn farm in southern Ontario, Hadfield become a top fighter pilot for the Canadian air force before being selected from over 5,000 people in 1992 to be one of four new Canadian astronauts.

This was his third space mission, after flying with the US shuttle to the now defunct Russian Mir station in 1995 and to the ISS in April 2001.

Hadfield's official biography published by the Canadian Space Agency lists a seemingly endless range of earth-bound interests including "skiing, playing guitar, singing, riding, writing, running, and playing volleyball and squash."

Hadfield, who was commander of the station, also oversaw a dramatic spacewalk at the weekend performed by Americans Marshburn and Chris Cassidy to halt an ammonia leak.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Washington (AFP) May 11, 2013 - NASA astronauts performed an emergency spacewalk Saturday to halt an ammonia leak on the International Space Station but it will take weeks or months to determine whether the problem has been permanently fixed.

The spacewalk was successfully completed an hour ahead of schedule at 1814 GMT, five and a half hours after flight engineers Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy ventured outside the ISS.

During the maneuver, Marshburn and Cassidy attached a spare pump and flow control sub assembly box to replace the one suspected to be the source of an ammonia leak that affected the US segment of the orbiting laboratory on Thursday.

Ammonia is used to cool the station's power system.

The new pump was turned on about an hour later, and after about 30 minutes of careful observation by the astronauts and mission control, ISS commander Chris Hadfield of Canada tweeted: "No leaks! We're bringing Tom & Chris back inside."

Although the pump will continue to be observed through instruments, the early indications were positive that "we have climbed a big mountain on solving the ammonia leak," a commentator at mission control said on NASA television.

ISS flight director Joel Montalbano later told a press briefing the astronauts had done a "fantastic job."

"We're very happy, we didn't see any sign of leaks but it's going to take weeks to see if we did in fact stop the leak," Montalbano said.

Asked to put a timescale on when officials could be certain the problem had been repaired, Montalbano cautioned it could take several weeks.

"I expect it will take four weeks or five weeks, possibly longer before we have a real 100 percent characterization," he said.

"Weeks or months, it's too early to tell you. But it's going to take some time."

Officials said the emergency spacewalk set a precedent because it was conducted at such short notice.

It was the 168th excursion in support of the orbiting laboratory and the fourth for both Marshburn and Cassidy, who have worked together before.

Both US and Russian officials stressed that spacewalks are usually taxing undertakings involving ISS crews and mission control on the ground.

Hadfield, overseeing the mission, tweeted that it was a "workout" to wear a spacesuit that weighs more than 220 pounds (100 kilograms), according to the Russian Space Agency.

"The reason they regularly check their gloves is for damage. Even though multi-layer, even a tiny leak requires immediate haste to airlock," Hadfield said on Twitter.

The Russian space agency quoted Vladimir Solovyov, flight director for the Russian segment of the space station, as saying that "after each such sortie, guys come back like they've been through a good battle, with bruised hands and grazed shoulders."

NASA has stressed that the lives of the multinational crew were not in danger, but both Russian and US space experts called the leak "serious."

The US space agency said ammonia was leaking from the same general area as in a previous episode in November last year.

A meteorite or a piece of orbital debris is suspected to have hit the cooling radiator and caused the problem, which ISS program manager Michael Suffredini described as an "annoyance because of all the work we have to do to work around the problem."

The issue took a turn for the worse on Thursday, when it began leaking about five pounds of ammonia per day, compared with a previous level of five pounds per year.

Hadfield earlier described the leak as a "very steady stream of flakes or bits" of ammonia drifting into space.

The flakes were moving "evenly and repeatedly enough that it looks like they were coming from a point source," he said in a recording of the conversation posted by NASA.

Hadfield, Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko are set to return to Earth early Tuesday after completing their half-year stint aboard the station. And Saturday's spacewalk is not expected to interfere with their planned departure.

Cassidy is also set to perform two scheduled spacewalks in July, NASA said.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Kourou, French Guiana (ESA) May 10, 2013 - Fueling has been completed at the Spaceport in French Guiana for Europe's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), readying it for a planned June launch with Arianespace's workhorse Ariane 5 on an International Space Station servicing mission.

The loading of propellant, along with a supply of gas, was performed in the Spaceport's S5 payload preparation facility, where the vessel also was integrated and received its cargo. With this step finalized, the ATV is ready for transfer to the Ariane 5 Final Assembly Building - where it will be installed atop the launcher.

This ATV payload is named after Albert Einstein, and will have a liftoff mass of 20,235 kg. - becoming the heaviest spacecraft ever lofted by Ariane 5. It carries the most diverse cargo mix of any ATV mission so far, consisting of fuel, water, air, oxygen and dry cargo for delivery to the International Space Station. In addition, the ATV will serve to adjust the orbital facility's altitude and make maneuvers to avoid collisions with space debris.

Liftoff of ATV Albert Einstein is scheduled for June 5 from the Spaceport. Arianespace is responsible for launching all ATVs, and has orbited three of them to date: ATV Edoardo Amaldi in 2012, ATV Johannes Kepler in 2011 and ATV Jules Verne in 2008. The Automated Transfer Vehicles are built by an industry team led by Astrium, which also is the industrial prime contractor for Ariane 5.

This upcoming Ariane 5 fight is the second scheduled in 2013, following Arianespace's February 7 success that orbited the Amazonas 3 and Azerspace/Africasat-1a telecommunications platforms from French Guiana.

In other activity this year, the lightweight Vega member of Arianespace's launcher family conducted its second flight from the Spaceport on a nighttime May 6-7 mission, orbiting three satellites (Proba-V, VNREDSat-1 and ESTCube-1); while the company's Starsem affiliate launched a medium-lift Soyuz from Baikonur Cosmodrome on February 6 with six Globalstar second-generation satellites.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Washington (AFP) May 01, 2013 - NASA said Tuesday it will pay $424 million more to Russia for giving US astronauts a lift to the International Space Station.

The hefty bill includes the training and transporting of six astronauts to and from the ISS in 2016 and the first half of 2017 in Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

That comes down to $70.6 million a seat, an increase of $5.6 million from the previous price tag.

NASA chief Charles Bolden pointed the finger squarely at the US Congress, saying that if it had approved the President Barack Obama's requested funding for a public-private partnership plan known as the "Commercial Crew Program" the US space agency would not have been forced to sign the new contract with its Russian counterpart Roscosmos.

"Because the funding for the president's plan has been significantly reduced, we now won't be able to support American launches until 2017," he wrote in a blog post.

In the same entry, he stressed that full funding of $821 million -- as included in the administration's 2014 budget request -- was imperative to prevent further delays and keep the agency on track to meet its 2017 deadline.

"Even this delayed availability will be in question if Congress does not fully support the President's fiscal year 2014 request for our Commercial Crew Program, forcing us once again to extend our contract with the Russians," he wrote.

Russian Soyuz spacecraft are currently the only means of transport to the ISS for astronauts, since the end of NASA's shuttle program in July 2011.

"While our Russian counterparts have been good partners, it is unacceptable that we don't currently have an American capability to launch our own astronauts," Bolden wrote.

]]> Thu, 23 MAY 2013 23:04:58 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D