News Archive / Author: Jim Siegel

Jim Siegel comes from a business and engineering background, as well as a journalistic one. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University, an MBA from the University of Michigan, and executive certificates from Northwestern University and Duke University. Jim got interested in journalism in 2002. As a resident of Celebration, FL, Disney’s planned community outside Orlando, he has written and performed photography extensively for the Celebration Independent and the Celebration News. He has also written for the Detroit News, the Indianapolis Star, and the Northwest Indiana Times (where he started his newspaper career at age 11 as a paperboy). Jim is well known around Celebration for his photography, and he recently published a book of his favorite Celebration scenes. Jim has covered the Kennedy Space Center since 2006. His experience has brought a unique perspective to his coverage of first, the space shuttle Program, and now the post-shuttle era, as US space exploration accelerates its dependence on commercial companies. He specializes in converting the often highly technical aspects of the space program into contexts that can be understood and appreciated by average Americans.

Articles By Jim Siegel

• Science and technology to get boost from CRS-12 mission

  August 12th, 2017

  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The cargo aboard NASA’s scheduled Aug. 14, 2017, CRS mission to the ISS could help more people than just the six crew and cosmonauts currently living there. With more than three tons of experiments and materials being ferried, SpaceX's Dragon capsule could benefit people ranging from those suffering from Parkinson's disease, to those seeking bio-engineered organs, to soldiers on the battlefield.

• NanoRacks airlock moving toward 2019 installation on the ISS

  July 21st, 2017

  Five months ago, NanoRacks LLC announced it would partner with Boeing to build the first private airlock for the International Space Station. That initiative is progressing and recently achieved a design milestone with the successful test of a NASA-built, full-scale mockup at the Johnson Space Center in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL).

• Where’s the Beef? NASA OA-7 mission takes a look at astronauts’ menu

  April 21st, 2017

  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — One of many challenges of long-duration space travel is storing the necessary food and other supplies. Without a way to replenish supplies, a mission to Mars would have to be self-sustaining. One way of reducing the very large amount of food required for such a trip would be to grow some of that food on the way.

• Kilowatts and Sea Turtles: NASA’s Thermal Energy Storage Project

  February 25th, 2017

  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA is currently working under an initiative to better utilize the energy that helps power the location's facilities. This includes a large thermal energy storage tank that was recently installed.

• OSIRIS-REx – the human factor

  September 28th, 2016

  While the world is frequently amazed at the powerful and precise equipment required to explore the cosmos, the technology would be useless without one particular asset – people.

• OPINION: What are the 2016 presidential contenders’ views on space?

  September 25th, 2016

  Voters are likely having a hard time learning about how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump feel about space exploration. Neither of their websites mentions NASA or space exploration. The platforms for each Party only give a cursory mention of these topics. Space exploration simply doesn't top the agenda during this election.

• OSIRIS-REx bound for 4.5 billion mile journey for some priceless pebbles

  September 7th, 2016

  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — On Thursday, September 8, 2016, NASA’s latest foray into space, a mission named OSIRIS-REx, is scheduled to launch from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station adjacent to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. While the objective of the mission might appear tiny, what the "might" possibly be is profound.

• NASA, CASIS and NanoRacks will refly student experiments lost on SpaceX CRS-7 accident

  July 24th, 2015

  Eight students from Chatfield High School located in Littleton, CO, along with hundreds of other spectators who attended the ill-fated June 28 Commercial Resupply Services 7 (CRS-7) launch, got a reminder of just how challenging it is to send payloads into orbit. They, and students from dozens of other schools across the country, had experiments aboard the Dragon […]

• NASA seeking to unlock secrets of longevity

  July 9th, 2015

  World War II veteran Dorothy Turner Johnson, a resident of Disney’s Celebration, Florida, community celebrated her 100th birthday several months ago. Does Dorothy have some “secret” to a long and remarkably active life? Scientists now believe that it’s related to something called telomeres, the “caps” on the ends of chromosomes (similar to the tips of […]

• SpaceX CRS-6 mission to assist in osteoporosis research

  April 22nd, 2015

  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — Until recently, Florida residents Sally and Don (their last names have been withheld to protect their identity) have been quite ambivalent about space exploration. The launches at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center take place a mere 70 miles away from their home, but did not pay them much mind. That changed on April […]

• LC-39A major part of NASA’s ‘Master Plan’ for Kennedy Space Center

  April 15th, 2015

  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla — Mic Woltman of NASA’s Launch Vehicle Services Engineering revealed on Monday, April 13, at a press briefing outside Launch Complex 39A that a number of additional launch pads are being considered as part of NASA’s “KSC Master Plan”. The earlier Master Plan, which dates back to 1967, identified two launch […]

• Did Al Gore ‘invent’ DSCOVR?

  February 12th, 2015

  In a hastily-arranged NASA press conference just prior to the scheduled Feb. 8, 2015, launch attempt of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR ) satellite, Senator Bill Nelson (D, FL) revealed that the conceptual idea for the spacecraft that has morphed into DSCOVR originated with former Vice President Al Gore. Gore, in turn, credited fellow Democrats Nelson as well as Senator […]

• MAVEN survives shutdown, ready for November 18 launch

  October 29th, 2013

  During an October 28, 2013, news briefing, NASA and Mission officials revealed that the Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) Mission is back on track for its planned November 18 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) in Florida.  That Mission had been among the many NASA programs that had […]

• Juno and LADEE succeed despite shutdown

  October 17th, 2013

  While Congress and the White House continued their stalemate that caused a partial shutdown of the federal government and most of NASA, two NASA space probes achieved milestones in pursuit of their ultimate mission goals.  Juno, launched two years ago into a counter-intuitive slingshot orbit, flew back near Earth as it proceeds to its destination, […]

• Orbital Sciences Corporation suing United Launch Alliance, State of Virginia

  October 14th, 2013

  When NASA surprised many observers in 2006 by inviting private commercial companies to develop space vehicles for low earth orbit missions (the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract – COTS), it triggered a level of competitive forces that had not been seen in the space flight industry.  Companies scrambled to create partnerships and corner scarce resources […]