(3/21/07 - CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) - NASA managers won't decide until next month when to try launching Atlantis on the year's first space shuttle mission, giving technicians more time to assess hail damage to its external fuel tank, officials said Wednesday.
Atlantis originally was scheduled to lift off last week, but the
launch was postponed after golf-ball-size hail caused thousands of
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Repairs to space shuttle Atlantis' hail-damaged fuel tank will delay the ship's liftoff until at least May.
NASA likely will wait until April 10 to name a new launch date because of continued uncertainty about how long it will take technicians to fix thousands of divots in the foam insulation that covers the 15-story tank's exterior. Mission managers still hope the repairs can be completed in time to allow liftoff before the current launch window closes May 20.
If the repair work turns out to be lengthy, however, an option would be to give Atlantis the next mission's tank, which is scheduled to arrive in Florida on April 10. Swapping tanks would delay Atlantis' flight until mid-June.
(Created: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 9:21 PM CDT)
The University of Houston-Clear Lake's 19th annual chili cook-off will be held March 31.
The event will take place from noon to 4 p.m. behind the university's Delta Building.
Chili-tasting kits will be available for purchase, but admission is free and open to all wishing to attend.
STS-117 — Crew will install a second starboard truss segment and a third set of solar arrays and batteries to the International Space Station.
Launch: Originally, March 15, 2007, but it has been postponed.
Mission Duration: 11 days
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas ? The former astronaut fired by NASA after being accused of trying to kidnap a romantic rival in an airport parking lot will develop flight lesson plans as part of her next Navy assignment.
Lisa Nowak, a Navy captain, will work on developing curriculum and training programs when she joins the staff of the Chief of Naval Air Training Command in Corpus Christi next month, said Navy spokesman Lt. Sean Robertson.
"(Nowak) will have more of a course developer role, rather than be a direct instructor," Robertson said.
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) ? A spacesuit developed by students at the University of North Dakota and four other schools will be tested in the Utah desert. UND officials said researchers from the school will travel with the spacesuit to Utah during the first week in April. Students from the Spaceward Bound education program will help the designers test the suit at Utah's Mars Desert Research Station.
The Spaceward Bound program is sponsored by NASA in cooperation with the Mars Society, a group devoted to promoting Mars exploration, and seeks to train students in space-related fields, its Web site says.
Researcher Pablo de Leon, a UND aerospace engineer, said the testing in Utah will offer the chance to solve problems in the same way an astronaut would be forced to do on Mars.
It's not exactly sleek ? a couple of mutilated classroom carts, Plexiglas, lots of duct tape and other salvaged classroom parts ? but the device, handmade by Austin Community College students, is their ticket to the space program.
Four ACC students spent months designing and constructing a centrifuge, which they believe will help in measuring the mass of objects in space.
Today, they will report to Johnson Space Center in Houston to test their hypothesis aboard NASA's Weightless Wonder, a modified McDonnell Douglas DC-9 jetliner that takes 45-degree nosedives to simulate zero gravity.
Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak will work on developing curriculum and training programs when she joins the staff of the Chief of Naval Air Training Command in Corpus Christi next month, said a Navy spokesman, Lt. Sean Robertson.
She was originally expected to report for work this week, but Robertson said Nowak will start her new job in April.
Nowak was arrested Feb. 5 on suspicion of confronting a romantic rival in a parking lot at the airport in Orlando, Fla. Police said Nowak pepper-sprayed Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, the girlfriend of astronaut Bill Oefelein, and had in her possession a BB gun, steel mallet, knife and rubber tubing.
The queen of England will visit the United States the first week of May to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown's colony - and take a side trip to the Kentucky Derby - but she is scheduled to depart just before a three-day gala celebration.
Buckingham Palace made the widely anticipated announcement Wednesday afternoon.
This will be the fourth state visit to the United States by Queen Elizabeth II. She will visit Virginia May 3-4 and then go to Kentucky to see the Derby on May 5. The royal couple will then arrive in Washington May 6-8 for a visit hosted by President Bush and the first lady.
The former astronaut fired by NASA after being accused of trying to kidnap a romantic rival in an airport parking lot will develop flight lesson plans as part of her next Navy assignment.
Lisa Nowak, a Navy captain, will work on developing curriculum and training programs when she joins the staff of the Chief of Naval Air Training Command in Corpus Christi next month, said Navy spokesman Lt. Sean Robertson.
?(Nowak) will have more of a course developer role, rather than be a direct instructor,? Robertson said.
A guide to help parents choose movies for children under the age of 13.
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— NASA managers won't decide until next month on a date for Atlantis' next launch, giving technicians more time to assess hail damage to the space shuttle's external fuel tank, officials said Wednesday.
Atlantis originally was scheduled to lift off last week, but the launch was postponed after golf-ball-size hail caused thousands of dings on foam insulation on the fuel tank as the shuttle sat on the launch pad last month.
Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations, said NASA managers probably would wait until April 10 before deciding whether to use the current tank — which would leave open the possibility of flying in May — or swap it out with another tank — which would push back the next try until June.
Six contented goldfish offered one glimpse of a green future Wednesday as they swam blissfully in a bubbling, temperature-controlled cylinder of water in the exhibit hall of the Convention Center.
Outdoors, at the entrance to HemisFair Park, people lined up to test drive one of a dozen automobiles that presented a different slice of the same vision.
Some day, according to the businessmen and scientists who are filling the Convention Center this week, cars, fish tanks, children's toys, lawn mowers, cell phones and home heating systems may be powered by hydrogen, a clean and renewable way to generate electrical energy from something as nearby as a water faucet.
Second Chance Pets is an animal-welfare organization dedicated to providing stray and unwanted pets a second chance through foster care and pet-adoption programs.
Volunteers are needed to provide homes until a permanent home can be found. The organization also can use volunteers to assist with weekly mobile adoptions held Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Petco on Bay Area Boulevard at Space Center Boulevard.
Annual 'Trash Bash' needs help at various area sitesThe 14th annual Rivers, Lakes, Bays 'N Bayous Trash Bash is scheduled for March 31.
Matching the words together, Rad Arner says, was his biggest challenge in embroidering the U.S.Constitution. Never mind that it took 750 hours for the design, layout, and needlework, or that there were two million stitches in the 4,550 word document. A self proclaimed "American Patriot", Arner says it was God who put the idea to do the project into his mind.
Although embroidering the Constitution may have seemed like an impossible dream, Arner is no stranger to challenges. After loosing his hearing as a toddler, Arner went on to learn to speak, read lips, and to sign. He graduated from college with a degree in engineering and worked for Nasa and Lockeed Martin. Arner and his wife Josephine, who also lost her hearing as a child, raised five hearing children who have given them 12 grandchildren.
Arner plans to offer his one of a kind embroidered Constitution on E Bay with hopes that a public institution, such as a college or library will purchase it. This would enable more pople to see and enjoy what Rad Arner describes as "a work of art that God taught him how to make".
March 20: Watch the first five minutes of the SpaceX Falcon 1's ascent, marking the first true spaceflight for a new breed of rocket.SpaceX
Alan BoyleScience editorMSNBC
Alan Boyle
CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA faces an external tank repair job unprecedented in magnitude, but a history of similar repairs makes the agency confident the work can be done without creating the type of debris hazard that doomed Columbia and its crew.
At a meeting today, NASA managers will determine how long the repairs might take. The answer could force NASA to swap the hail-damaged tank attached to shuttle Atlantis with a new one, a move that likely would stall International Space Station construction until June.
"The desire is to be able to repair and fly the (damaged) tank," said Kyle Herring, a spokesman for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It probably does put you in the June window if you swap tanks. But obviously, we are still hopeful that we don't have to do that."
The following editorial appeared in the Orlando Sentinel on Monday, March 19:
Talk about your budget crunches. Too little funding of NASA's program tracking asteroids has the space agency behind schedule in its important mission to monitor space rocks that could devastate or extinguish life on Earth.
The problem's hardly academic: If planetary defenders knew of an asteroid's approach, one day they could potentially launch spacecraft with the potential to divert it. The alternative is getting caught unaware. Think, for example, of the strike above the Siberian landscape in 1908 that leveled 830 square miles of forest, or the impact 65 million years ago that likely killed the dinosaurs.
A former astronaut could go to trial in late July on charges that she tried to kidnap a woman in what police call a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut, according to state prosecutors.
Lisa Nowak's trial could begin July 30, opening a two-week window for the proceedings, said Danielle Tavernier, a spokeswoman for State Attorney Lawson Lamar.
An arraignment was scheduled for Thursday, but Nowak is not expected to appear since her attorney has filed a not guilty plea to attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault and battery.
ORLANDO ? A former astronaut arrested on charges of trying to kidnap a rival for the romantic affections of another astronaut could face trial in late July, the State Attorney?s Office said Tuesday.
Lisa Nowak?s trial has been scheduled for a two-week period starting July 30, said Danielle Tavernier, a spokeswoman for State Attorney Lawson Lamar.
Nowak, a mother of three who is separated from her husband, was arrested in February after allegedly confronting Colleen Shipman, the girlfriend of astronaut Bill Oefelein, in an Orlando airport parking lot. She drove from Houston, wearing an astronaut diaper so that she would not have to stop during her 900-mile trip, authorities said.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A budget rocket developed by the founder of Internet financial services firm PayPal blasted off on Tuesday from a remote island in the South Pacific, bolstering hopes of cheaper fares to fly cargo, and eventually people, into space.
The 68-foot (21-meter) booster rocket called Falcon 1 lifted off at 9:10 p.m. EDT (0110 GMT Wednesday) from Omelek Island on a U.S. military missile test range at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and successfully arrived in space minutes later.
About five minutes into the flight, a problem cropped up with the booster's second-stage engine, which shut down early due to an unexpected roll, said Space Exploration Technologies chief Elon Musk.
HUALAPAI INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz. — Indian leaders and former astronauts stepped gingerly beyond the Grand Canyon's rim Tuesday, staring through the glass floor and into the 4,000-foot chasm below during the opening ceremony for a new observation deck.
A few members of the Hualapai Indian Tribe, which allowed the Grand Canyon Skywalk to be built, hopped up and down on the horseshoe-shaped structure. At its edge — 70 feet beyond the rim — the group peeked over the glass wall.
"I can hear the glass cracking!" Hualapai Chairman Charlie Vaughn said playfully.
WASHINGTON — Government scientists, armed with copies of heavily edited reports, charged Monday that the Bush administration and its political appointees had soft-pedaled their findings on climate change.
The accusations led Democrats and Republicans at the congressional hearing to accuse each other of censorship, smear tactics and McCarthyism.
To underscore the administration’s oil-friendly stance, Democrats grilled an oil lobbyist who was hired by the White House to review government climate change documents and who made hundreds of edits that the lawmakers said minimized the impact of global warming.
In 10 days, Alejandro Diaz will be making his second trip to the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, where the 1993 Walnut High School graduate will be part of a crew that spends two weeks simulating life and work on Mars.
The barren landscape of Canyonlands desert is similar to Mars-like terrain and appearance, where a two-story, 30-foot-wide cylinder mimics a space habitat complete with sleeping quarters, a kitchen, bathrooms and airlocks.
Six crew members ranging from a biologist, geologist and engineers will be participating on the central theme of emergency preparedness for work on Mars.
A former astronaut could go to trial in late July on charges that she tried to kidnap a woman in what police call a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut, according to state prosecutors.
Lisa Nowak's trial could begin July 30, opening a two-week window for the proceedings, said Danielle Tavernier, a spokeswoman for State Attorney Lawson Lamar.
Nowak is not expected to appear at an arraignment Thursday in Orlando; her attorney has filed a not guilty plea.
Images from Nowak's return to Houston Astronaut's alleged victim 'petrified' NASA comments on astronaut's arrest Nowak ...
Former astronaut Lisa Nowak could go on trial as early as July 30 on charges she assaulted and tried to kidnap her romantic rival in a Florida airport parking lot.
NASA dumped Nowak from its ranks March 8, a month after she was arrested in Orlando on charges she attacked and tried to kidnap Colleen Shipman.
I am excited to announce one of the latest additions to the University of Houston-Clear Lake?s degree program roster ? the master of science in biotechnology degree.
For 15 years, I have been part of the biotechnology field and I am thrilled to share my enthusiasm for it with area students.
During my research and teaching, I have seen amazing discoveries in the biosciences and I am delighted by the prospect of biotechnology and its use of scientific discoveries to generate new tissues and organs.
ORLANDO, Fla. A date is set for the trial of a former astronaut accused of trying to kidnap another woman in what police call a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut.A spokeswoman for a Florida state attorney says Lisa Nowak's trial is expected to last two weeks.An arraignment is scheduled for Thursday. Nowak is not expected to appear since her attorney has filed a not-guilty plea to attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault and battery.Nowak was arrested in February on suspicion of confr...
Talk about your budget crunches. Too little funding of NASA?s program tracking asteroids has the space agency behind schedule in its important mission to monitor space rocks that could devastate or extinguish life on Earth.
The problem?s hardly academic: If planetary defenders knew of an asteroid?s approach, one day they could potentially launch spacecraft with the potential to divert it. The alternative is getting caught unaware. Think, for example, of the strike above the Siberian landscape in 1908 that leveled 830 square miles of forest, or the impact 65 million years ago that likely killed the dinosaurs.
This hardly is NASA?s problem alone, however. It?s the world?s. More of its nations need to pitch in the resources to help all concerned survive it.
PLEASANT GROVE — Randy Bond hasn't been to space, and he probably won't ever get to space.
Scott G. Winterton, Deseret Morning NewsRandy Bond of West Jordan is a NASA solar system ambassador and has collected memorabilia for many years.
But that doesn't stop him from serving as a volunteer solar system ambassador for Jet Propulsion Labs of Pasadena, Calif.
Since Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space in 1961, our nation has sent men to walk on the moon, robots to chart the surface of Mars, and spacecraft to explore the far reaches of the universe.
Driven by a spirit of exploration and discovery, the developments of the past few weeks remind us of the breadth and scope of our space program.
-- NASA has announced repairs are nearly complete on the thermal tiles of the shuttle Atlantis.
By Wednesday, the agency could set a new launch date for El Paso's first astronaut.
As KFOX has reported, Danny Olivas is set to go up in space when the shuttle launches.
Ground control: When NASA awarded a $7.5 billion contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. to build Orion, the next-generation spacecraft, there was speculation that the office market around Nassau Bay would rocket.
Well, there?s news. Lockheed Martin has leased 80,000 square feet at 2400 NASA Parkway in Nassau Bay. This is the first lease to come from the contract, according to the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hold on his job grew more uncertain Monday as the Senate debated removing his authority to unilaterally name U.S. attorneys and the White House said it merely hoped he would survive the tumult.
Asked if Gonzales had contained the political damage from the firing of eight federal prosecutors, White House spokesman Tony Snow said, "I don't know."
Snow declined to predict how long Gonzales would stay in his job but reiterated President Bush's support of him.
WASHINGTON -- Lifting the ban on taxpayer funding of research on new stem cells from fertilized embryos would better serve both science and the nation, the chief of the National Institutes of Health told lawmakers Monday.
Allowing the ban to remain in place, Dr. Elias Zerhouni told a Senate panel, leaves his agency fighting "with one hand tied behind our back."
"It is clear today that American science will be better served -- the nation will be better served -- if we allow our scientists to have access to more cell lines," Zerhouni told two members of the Senate health appropriations subcommittee during a hearing on the NIH's proposed 2008 budget. The NIH, with a nearly $29 billion annual budget, is the main federal agency that conducts and funds medical research.
If Tonya, cops are involved, it's a national event
When Jay Leno's monologue Thursday included the words "Vancouver, Washington," it wasn't hard to guess another couple of words that would be coming along shortly.
Tonya Harding.
NASA on Wednesday will discuss the status of space shuttle Atlantis' upcoming mission, STS-117. The teleconference follows a
meeting to review options to repair the shuttle's external fuel tank, which was damaged Feb. 26 during a hail storm at NASA's Kennedy Space
Center, Fla.
OREM — Aaron Orullian loves the stars and the sun and the moon and Mars.
Keith Johnson, Deseret Morning NewsNASA solar system ambassador Aaron Orullian shows a piece of a meteor to Ethan Lewis, left, Charles Day and Alex Loveless.
And he loves to talk about them.
Ex-official says changes in reports made to align views with Bush policy
11:25 PM CDT on Monday, March 19, 2007
Associated Press
NASA and the Houston Technology Center have signed an agreement that will expand a multiyear partnership between the two organizations.
NASA and HTC will collaborate on various educational efforts, including providing assistance to members of the business community in the development of grant proposals, supplying information on how to expand their products with licenses, and fostering research and development products that ultimately could be used by NASA.
"We are looking forward to developing this partnership even further, expanding our resources, and connecting with even more businesses through HTC -- companies that ultimately could evolve into more NASA partners," said Michelle Brekke, director of the Johnson Space Center Technology Transfer Office.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A former White House official accused of improperly editing reports on global warming defended his editing changes Monday, saying they reflected views in a 2001 report by the National Academy of Sciences. House Democrats said the 181 changes made in three climate reports reflected a consistent attempt to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science of climate change and undercut the broad conclusions that man-made emissions are warming the earth. Philip Cooney, form...
(3/19/07) - Circle your calendar. April 13th, 2036 could be a really, really bad day on planet Earth.
A group of astronauts and engineers warns that an asteroid may pass uncomfortably close to Earth that day. The chances it will actually hit are just one in 45,000, but even at those odds, the scientists warn, the United Nations should consider a response.
Potential Threat
SARASOTA - The Sarasota Film Festival is reaching to the moon for this year's event.
"We're not only bringing in the stars, we're bringing people who have been to the stars," executive director Jody Kielbasa said Monday prior to the official announcement of the festival's lineup.
For the first time, the festival will open with a documentary: David Singleton's "In the Shadow of the Moon," about the 12 men who walked on the moon during NASA's Apollo program of the 1960s and '70s.
One year after its first launch ended in failure, SpaceX put the second launch of its low-cost Falcon 1 rocket on hold Monday.
The "abort" signal was apparently issued automatically due to a problem getting pre-launch telemetry from the range around SpaceX's Pacific island launch site, said Gwynne Shotwell, the company's vice president for business development. She noted that SpaceX had beefed up its autonomous launch-abort system in the wake of last year's unsuccessful maiden launch.
Shotwell said the next launch attempt would take place no earlier than Tuesday. "We'll get back in 24 or 48 hours," she said.
WASHINGTON — One day last week, the entire Federal Communications Commission was summoned for the first time in three years before a House committee, where its members were grilled for five hours and told to expect to be "frequent guests."
On another day, Congress authorized subpoenas for Justice Department officials in its escalating investigation into the murky reasons offered by the Bush administration for its decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys.
And on yet another day, former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame was the star witness at a hearing where she accused White House officials of "recklessly" blowing her cover and destroying her career.
WASHINGTON Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse.
How crazy?
Theres the man-made volcano that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into the air. The space sun shade made of trillions of little reflectors between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planets temperature. The forest of ugly artificial trees that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. And the Geritol solution in which iron dust is dumped into the ocean.
WASHINGTON -- Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse.
How crazy?
There's the man-made volcano that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into the air. The space "sun shade" made of trillions of little reflectors between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planet's temperature. The forest of ugly artificial "trees" that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. And the "Geritol solution" in which iron dust is dumped into the ocean.
What do the Environmental Protection Agency, Union of Concerned Scientists, NOAA, NASA, NRDC and the United Nations have in common? All have done scientific studies confirming global warming as it pertains to our planet's health.
Opposite views on global warming come mainly from the big oil/energy sector, Wall Street demanding ever increasing profit standards and lobbyists paid to be their mouthpieces. They give no scientific evidence undermining global warming; none at all.
The intelligent design crowd tells us we have no control over our planet's activities, that we must believe in a higher being to solve this issue.
Click photo to enlargePAULA M. FELIPE/MERCURY-REGISTER
Las Plumas High School student Paterra Yang, from left, received an award from Jim Moll of A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. at the annual Oroville Chamber dinner, Wednesday. «12»Several awards were announced during the 63rd annual Oroville Chamber of Commerce dinner that took place in the Feather Falls Casino Showroom on Wednesday night.
Master of Ceremonies "Voice of Oroville" Jim Moll opened the program by thanking the sponsors of the dinner, which were Feather Falls Casino, Taco Bell, and the Oroville Mercury-Register.
If you scan a media report on climate change and it often turns up Michael Schlesinger's name, there's good reason.
He's quick with a quip, for one thing.
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Oil City High School students Nick Kelley and Sandy Weiser lend a hand with the day-to-day duties at the Kitt Peak Observatory telescope in Tucson, Ariz. The duo were adding liquid nitrogen to the dewer of the equipment.
A group of Oil City High School students and its earth and space science teacher are still reaching for the stars.
Timothy Spuck and a handful of dedicated students spent January putting the final touches on a presentation for the American Astronomical Society annual meeting in Seattle.
Our position: The threat of asteroids isn't just NASA's problem.
March 19, 2007
Talk about your budget crunches. Too little funding of NASA's program
Experts say an asteroid 300 meters in diameter could hit Earth in less than 30 years.
There has been recent talk in the scientific community about Apophis, an asteroid discovered in June 2004. Initially, it was believed it could hit the Earth in 2029, but it's path was later recalculated.
Further investigation shows that it will enter a "gravitational keyhole" and renew it's chance of hitting the Earth by 2036.
An air capture device, such as this prototype developed by Columbia University, would suck carbon dioxide from the air, perhaps near wind turbines, to help lessen global warming.
FEDERICO BARRAI
Columbia University
When the Wright brothers’ airplane lifted off the ground at Kitty Hawk on Dec. 17, 1903, the local North Carolina photographer whom they had hired fainted at the sight of Orville and their craft sailing into the air because the sight was so shocking.
Fortunately, the photographer pressed the trigger of the camera so that the launch of this first flight was captured forever in one of the most famous photos ever taken.
Many people today may think of commercial space travel for civilians as unlikely and surprising as air travel was to those living at the beginning of the 20th century. Yet within the near future there may be commercial spaceports, spacelines and spaceships that will offer the opportunity to fly beyond the Earth’s atmosphere as easily as one travels from city to city by airplane.
Any surgery you can do, a robot can probably do better. asap's Joe Danborn witnesses a demonstration for this asap video.
NASA wanted a contingency plan for an astronaut needing surgery in space. The solution: a machine that would put the surgeon's eyes and hands where the surgeon couldn't be.
The idea grew out of a 1980s Defense Department project to develop better surgical care on the battlefield. Two decades later, the results are showing up in hundreds of hospitals in the form of a $1.5 million remote-controlled robot.
Few organizations, public or private, have made a more positive impact on downtown Pensacola in the past decade than the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.
A research think tank for the study of robotics and human performance, the nationally recognized institute is the brainchild of founder Ken Ford.
Founded in 1990 at the University of West Florida, IHMC moved to its present headquarters at 40 South Alcaniz St. in September 1999, and quickly outgrew the space. IHMC now also occupies two other downtown buildings at 127 Alcaniz, and a new robotics lab at 100 Alcaniz.