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(07/20/09 12:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>WASHINGTON – The measure of what humanity can accomplish is a size 9 1/2 bootprint.It belongs to Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. It will stay on the moon for years with nothing to wipe it away, serving as a testament to a can-do mankind.Apollo 11 is the glimmering success that failures of society are contrasted against: “If we can send a man to the moon, why can’t we ...”What put man on the moon 40 years ago was an audacious and public effort the world hasn’t seen before or since. It required rocketry that hadn’t been built, or even designed, in 1961 when then-President John F. Kennedy declared the challenge. It needed an advance in computerization that had not happened yet. NASA would have to learn how to dock separate spaceships, how to teach astronauts to walk in space, even how to keep them alive in space – all tasks so difficult experts weren’t sure they were possible.Kennedy’s lunar ambitionForty years later, the moon landing is talked about as a generic human achievement, not an American one. But Apollo at the time was more about U.S. commitment and ingenuity.It was the Cold War and Russian Yuri Gagarin had just become the first man in space. Kennedy chose landing a man on the moon because experts told him it was the one space goal that was so distant and complicated at the time that the United States could catch up and pass the Soviet Union, Kennedy adviser Ted Sorensen said.The idea in a world where American capitalism was pitted against Soviet communism on a daily basis was “to prove to the world which system was best, which one was the future,” Sorensen said.“It’s not just the fact that the president wanted it done,” Sorensen recalled. “It was the fact that we had a specific goal and a specific timetable.”In another speech, Kennedy famously said America would go to the moon and try other tasks “not because they were easy, but because they were hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”They weren’t just skills with rockets and slide rules. Bringing together countless aerospace companies, engineers, scientists, technicians, politicians and several National Aeronautics and Space Administration centers around the nation was a management challenge even more impressive than building the right type of rockets, said Smithsonian Institution space scholar Roger Launius.And it cost money. The United States spent $25.4 billion on the Apollo program, which translates to nearly $150 billion in current dollars – less than the United States spent in both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007.National tragedies fuel Apollo programYet, in the view of those heavily involved in the challenge, what made Apollo work were two tragedies: the assassination of Kennedy in 1963 and the fatal Apollo 1 fire in 1967.The assassination of Kennedy made the Apollo program and its budget politically nearly untouchable. The moon-landing goal – which Kennedy later talked about modifying and even including the Soviets on – became a symbol of the martyred president. NASA’s launch center was renamed from Cape Canaveral to Kennedy.The Apollo fire, which occurred during ground testing, killed three astronauts, including Armstrong’s neighbor. The main problem was that there was 100 percent oxygen in the capsule, which made fire spread rapidly.Kraft, in a July interview, said he is convinced NASA couldn’t have reached Kennedy’s target were it not for the Apollo 1 fire and the way it made the space agency rethink everything: “We were building inferior hardware at that point in time. The whole program turned around, both from a hardware and management point of view,” Kraft said. “You really learn from failure.”So NASA drilled astronauts and flight controllers ceaselessly with simulations. Failures kept being thrown at the astronauts and the controllers, some just plain unsolvable.One of the last failures simulated before Apollo 11’s launch was an alarm on the lunar lander that signaled the computer was overloaded. During the simulation, Mission Control in Houston aborted the landing. But controllers were later told it was just an “indication” signal and that if they had thought about it, the computer really was working fine. Controllers thought the test was unfair, according to an account in the new book “Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon” by Craig Nelson.But during the real mission, as the Eagle lunar lander approached the moon, that test-run computer signal appeared. This time, controllers knew everything was OK. They didn’t abort the moon landing.‘The Eagle has landed’Still, there were more hurdles to come. In another example, experience and nerves paid off. As Eagle neared the landing area in the spot called Sea of Tranquility, Armstrong saw too many boulders and craters to come down safely. So he kept flying horizontally, 100 feet off the ground, scouring the moonscape for a smooth place.Eagle’s fuel tank neared empty. Alarms went off. Mission controllers in Houston fretted.“We still needed to get down,” recalled Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. “I’m not telling Neil, ‘Hey, Neil, hurry up, get on the ground.’ I’m sort of conveying this with body English.”There were only 17 seconds worth of fuel left. Finally, the radio at Mission Control crackled with Armstrong’s voice: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”Two hours later, humans walked on a place other than Earth, a place truly foreign.“This is a very desolate place,” recalled Aldrin, second to step on the moon. “It’s just boring. It’s all one color that varies depending on the sun angle. But the sky is black, it’s all black except the one object there, the Earth, and the object behind us, the sun.”The world watched on television as the first two men walked on the moon. But one person close to the action couldn’t. He was the third crew member of Apollo 11, command module pilot Michael Collins, who was orbiting the moon alone. He didn’t get to see what was happening. But he could hear Armstrong say his famous first words on the moon.Decades later, Armstrong called those first words “a pretty simple statement, talking about stepping off something.”But he wasn’t merely talking about that small step of his. What came next was the big deal. It was, as he said on the moon 40 years ago, “a giant leap for mankind.”It still is.
(06/11/07 4:05pm)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – With a 4-inch gap in the space shuttle Atlantis’ heat-protecting blanket not appearing to be a problem on Saturday, the crew readied themselves for what NASA called a delicate ballet with the international space station.\nThen the shuttle entered a weeklong embrace Sunday with the orbital outpost.\nAtlantis’ seven astronauts spent much of Saturday on a mandatory inspection of the shuttle’s delicate heat tiles, outer edges and blankets for problems similar to the kind that caused the fatal Columbia accident in 2003. As of Saturday afternoon, no glaring problems were reported.\nBut late Friday and early Saturday, the crew spent extra time using a robot arm to look at a gap in a thermal blanket on the left side of the shuttle. The gap, about 4 inches, is the result of an unusual fold in the blanket, not a debris hit, which caused Columbia’s fatal problem, NASA spokeswoman Lynette Madison said.\nThe area does not get hotter than 700 degrees Fahrenheit during the shuttle’s return to Earth and is not a place where NASA is usually concerned about potentially fatal problems, she said. Still, engineers were using photos to create a three-dimensional model of the gap just in case.\n“They don’t think it’s much of a concern,” Madison said.\nAs part of the normal day-after-launch tile inspections, astronaut Patrick Forrester used the shuttle’s robot arm and a boom extension to examine its wings and outer edges.\nAtlantis’ crew was given an extra half-hour to sleep Saturday morning, after which they awoke to the song “Big Boy Toys” by Aaron Tippin.\nAtlantis’ seven-man crew was closing the gap between it and the space station by about 800 miles every 90-minute orbit. By 2 p.m. EDT, the shuttle was scheduled to be about 4,000 miles away from its destination. Atlantis was scheduled to dock with the space station Sunday at 3:38 p.m. EDT.\nBefore the docking comes maneuvering that NASA officials often call a delicate ballet, a procedure that has appeared effortless in 20 previous tries, even though it is risky.\n“Two vehicles weighing 230,000 pounds going 17,500 mph, it’s tough stuff,” Mission Management Team leader John Shannon told The Associated Press.\nAtlantis commander Rick Sturckow will move the shuttle until it is 600 feet below the station and then make the shuttle turn a 360-degree backflip in just nine minutes. The last few feet of the docking occur so slowly that Atlantis will get only an inch closer to the station every second.\nOnce the shuttle and station connect, they will stay locked until June 17.\nDuring the 11-day flight, the astronauts will deliver a new segment and a pair of solar panels to the orbiting outpost. They plan three spacewalks – on Monday, Wednesday and Friday – to install the new equipment and retract an old solar panel.\nOn Sunday, astronaut Clayton Anderson will replace astronaut Sunita Williams as the U.S. representative aboard the space station, and Williams will return to Earth aboard Atlantis. She has spent the past six months in orbit.
(04/02/07 4:00am)
WASHINGTON – A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming, most of them bad, with every degree of temperature rise.\nThere’s one bright spot: A minimal heat rise means more food production in northern regions of the world.\nHowever, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated Press.\nSome scientists are calling this degree-by-degree projection a “highway to extinction.”\nIt’s likely to be the source of sharp closed-door debate, some scientists say, along with a multitude of other issues in the 20-chapter draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While the wording in the draft is almost guaranteed to change at this week’s meeting in Brussels, several scientists say the focus won’t.\nThe final document will be the product of a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists as authors and reviewers, along with representatives of more than 120 governments as last-minute editors. It will be the second volume of a four-volume authoritative assessment of Earth’s climate being released this year. The last such effort was in 2001.\nAndrew Weaver, a climate scientist with the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said the chart of results from various temperature levels is “a highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction.”\nWeaver is one of the lead authors of the first report, issued in February.\nWhile humanity will survive, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people may not, according to the chart – if the worst scenarios happen.\nThe report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many species, coastal areas and poor people. With a more than 90 percent level of confidence, the scientists in the draft report say man-made global warming “over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.”\nBut as the world’s average temperature warms from 1990 levels, the projections get more dire. Add 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit – 1 degree Celsius is the calculation scientists use – and between 400 million and 1.7 billion extra people can’t get enough water, some infectious diseases and allergenic pollens rise, and some amphibians go extinct. But the world’s food supply, especially in northern areas, could increase. That’s the likely outcome around 2020, according to the draft.\nAdd another 1.8 degrees and as many as 2 billion people could be without water and about 20 percent to 30 percent of the world’s species near extinction. Also, more people start dying because of malnutrition, disease, heat waves, floods and droughts – all caused by global warming. That would happen around 2050, depending on the level of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.\nAt the extreme end of the projections, a 7- to 9-degree average temperature increase, the chart predicts: “Up to one-fifth of the world population affected by increased flood events ... “1.1 to 3.2 billion people with increased water scarcity” ...”major extinctions around the globe.”\nDespite that dire outlook, several scientists involved in the process say they are optimistic that such a drastic temperature rise won’t happen because people will reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.\n“The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can’t be that stupid,” said Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy, who was a top author of the 2001 version of this report. “Not that I think the projections aren’t that good, but because we can’t be that stupid.”
(11/28/06 4:13am)
WASHINGTON -- Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of hundreds of research studies contends.\nThese fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists because they are occurring so rapidly.\nAt least 70 species of frogs, mostly mountain-dwellers that had nowhere to go to escape the creeping heat, have gone extinct because of climate change, the analysis says. It also reports that between 100 and 200 other cold-dependent animal species, such as penguins and polar bears, are in deep trouble.\n"We are finally seeing species going extinct," said University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan, author of the study. "Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening."\nHer review of 866 scientific studies is summarized in the journal Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics.\nParmesan reports seeing trends of animal populations moving northward if they can, of species adapting slightly because of climate change, of plants blooming earlier and of an increase in pests and parasites.\nParmesan and others have been predicting such changes for years, but even she was surprised to find evidence that it's already happening. She figured it would be another decade away.\nJust five years ago biologists, though not complacent, figured the harmful biological effects of global warming were much farther down the road, said Douglas Futuyma, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York in Stony Brook.\n"I feel as though we are staring crisis in the face," Futuyma said. "It's not just down the road somewhere. It is just hurtling toward us. Anyone who is 10 years old right now is going to be facing a very different and frightening world by the time that they are 50 or 60."\nWhile studies conducted during the past several years have shown problems with certain species, animal populations or geographic areas, Parmesan's is the first comprehensive analysis showing the big picture of global-warming induced changes, said Chris Thomas, a professor of conservation biology at the University of York in England.\nWhile it's impossible to prove conclusively that the changes are the result of global warming, the evidence is so strong and other supportable explanations are lacking, Thomas said, so it is "statistically virtually impossible that these are just chance observations."\nThe most noticeable changes in plants and animals have to do with earlier springs, Parmesan said. The best example can be seen in earlier cherry blossoms and grape harvests and in 65 British bird species that in general are laying their first eggs nearly nine days earlier than 35 years ago.\nParmesan said she worries most about the cold-adapted species, such as emperor penguins that have dropped from 300 breeding pairs to just nine in the western Antarctic Peninsula, or polar bears, which are dropping in numbers and weight in the Arctic.\nThe cold-dependent species on mountaintops have nowhere to go, which is why two-thirds of a certain grouping of frog species have already gone extinct, Parmesan said.\nPopulations of animals that adapt better to warmth or can move and live farther north are adapting better than other populations in the same species, Parmesan said.\n"We are seeing a lot of evolution now," Parmesan said. However, no new gene mutations have shown themselves, not surprising because that could take millions of years, she said.
(10/17/06 4:37am)
WEIGHTLESS ABOVE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN -- Science teacher Mike Hickey has long understood the difference between mass and weight. Now, floating in zero gravity, he doesn't just understand it; he feels it. The 54-year-old Cleveland high school teacher is giggling like a middle-schooler with a crush: "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I still have mass. No weight."\nHickey, all 197 pounds of him, is drifting along with 38 other teachers inside a specially modified jet diving over the Atlantic Ocean.\nAfter this, Hickey figures it will be simple to get his students to understand mass versus weight. The kids will see on video "this fat old man floating around like there was no weight there at all ... I definitely lost weight. I lost all my weight."\nZero gravity, once an exclusive playground for astronauts and select scientists, is no longer out of reach to others. Millionaires, doctors and teachers are feeling the fleeting freedom of weightlessness. The price is less than $4,000 for nearly five minutes in zero-G.\n"It's the wave of the future," said Syracuse University public administration and space policy professor W. Henry Lambright. "It's part of the maturity of the space program."\nIn the more than 40 years of zero-gravity flights, beginning with astronauts, the world's two largest space agencies have flown thousands of scientists, engineers, astronauts and even the cast and crew of the movie Apollo 13, said Alan Ladwig, a former NASA associate administrator. Ladwig, now Washington space operations chief for Northrop Grumman Corp., estimates that 50,000 people have flown in zero gravity.\nFive planes create zero-G conditions. NASA has one. The European Space Agency has one. The Russians have one. Two are commercially operated in the United States by Zero Gravity Corp. of Dania Beach, Fla.\nBesides Zero Gravity Corp., there are at least three other companies that sell zero-G flights to tourists, including Novespace of France, Space Adventures Ltd. of Virginia and Incredible Adventures Inc. of Florida. Those companies must arrange for a jet either from Zero Gravity Corp. or the European or Russian space agencies.\nIn late September, French doctors took a patient in a European plane, operated by Novespace, for the world's first human operation in zero gravity - removal of a cyst from a man's arm.\nThis month NASA asked college students to apply for the chance to fly in zero and lunar gravity on NASA's specially equipped jet.
(09/19/06 2:33am)
HOUSTON -- International space station astronauts pulled an alarm and donned protective gear Monday after smelling a foul odor that turned out to be a harmful chemical leaking from an oxygen vent, NASA said.\n"We don't exactly know the nature of the spill ... but the crew is doing well," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. "It's not a life-threatening material."\nThe crew first reported smoke, but it turned out to be an irritant, potassium hydroxide, leaking from an oxygen vent, Suffredini said.\nThe crew donned surgical gloves and masks but did not have to put on gas or oxygen masks, Suffredini said.\nNASA declared a spacecraft emergency for only the second time in the eight-year history of the station. The first time was for a false alarm of an ammonia spill.\nNASA initially said that the crew in the orbiting lab 220 miles above Earth had been working on a Russian oxygen-generating system known as the Elektron. But Suffredini said no work on the system had been scheduled at that time.\nThe Elektron was activated at 6:30 a.m. EDT and shut down about a half hour later. Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov reported the leak to Mission Control in Russia at 7:23 a.m. EDT.\nVinogradov described the liquid as transparent, "like distilled water."\n"At first, small-sized bubbles escaped, drops, four or five," Vinogradov said.\nU.S. astronaut Jeff Williams described the smell of burning rubber, but Mission Control in Houston said that odor likely came from the overheating of a rubber gasket.\n"That also jibes with the visible smoke coming from the rubber gasket," Williams said.\nThe station's third crew member is Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency, who arrived for his six-month stay in July aboard space shuttle Discovery. Williams and Vinogradov are slated to return to Earth at the end of the month.\nBecause the station's emergency system was activated, the ventilation system was shut down, but ground operations reactivated it a short time later. Astronauts used a charcoal air-scrubbing device to remove the offensive smell and Williams said the odor "decreased significantly."\nThe potassium hydroxide, a corrosive that can cause serious burns and can be harmful if inhaled, was cleaned up with towels and wrapped up in two rubber bags, Suffredini said.\nPotassium hydroxide can be used to power batteries and is also known as potash lye.\nThe Elektron system has given the space station headaches before. It had operated on-and-off for months before breaking down last spring. In June, the crew tried to reactivate it, with mixed results, after replacing a hydrogen vent valve outside during a spacewalk.\nThe failure of the Elektron, which looks like a water heater, had no impact on operations at the space station.\nThe international space station was in the middle of a revolving door of visitors. Space shuttle Atlantis' six astronauts departed on Sunday and a Russian Soyuz vehicle carrying two new station crew members and space tourist Anousheh Ansari were expected to arrive on Wednesday.