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Space shuttle Discovery prepares for final mission

February 1, 2011

Only 3 more flights – money permitting – for an iconic series of space craft before they are retired.

BBC:

The US shuttle Discovery has rolled out for what should be its final mission. The orbiter completed its slow journey to the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A overnight, Monday into Tuesday.

Discovery’s flight to the space station is scheduled to begin on 24 February. With its crew of six astronauts, the ship will deliver a storeroom to be attached to the 350km-high platform, along with further supplies and spares.

NASA last tried to launch the vehicle in November but technical hitches, including cracks on its giant external fuel tank, kept the ship on the ground. The agency said engineers had now fixed those defects and carried out further work to strengthen the tank.

President Barack Obama and the US Congress have determined that the shuttle fleet should be retired this year. Discovery is the oldest of the three surviving orbiters. First launched in 1984, it has since completed 38 missions, travelling some 230 million km in the process. Endeavour is expected to fly to the station in April. Atlantis will go no earlier than June, if Nasa has sufficient money left in its shuttle programme budget.

Following the fleet’s retirement, the plan is for US astronauts to fly to the space station on Russian Soyuz rockets until perhaps the middle of the decade.

Discovery

Space shuttle Discovery : image NASA

 

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Posted in Science, Space, US | 1 Comment »

25 years since Challenger exploded; almost 8 years since Columbia was destroyed

January 28, 2011

The Space Shuttle Challenger’s maiden flight was on 4th April, 1983, and it completed nine missions before breaking apart 73 seconds after the launch of its tenth mission, STS-51-L on 28th January, 1986.

A sombre anniversary today.

A special ceremony is taking place at the Kennedy Space Center’s visitor complex this morning. Members of the NASA family and the public will gather to honor those who died aboard space shuttle Challenger.

Twenty-five years ago the STS-51L crew boarded Challenger for a six-day flight. It was just after liftoff when things went wrong. Challenger was in the air for 73 seconds before the orbiter exploded. …. According to investigators’ findings, the cause of the explosion was an O-ring that failed in one of the solid rocket boosters. Cold weather was cited as a contributing factor.

File:Challenger explosion.jpg

The breakup of the space shuttle Challenger: 28th January 1986: Wikipedia

Challenger crew; El Onizuka,Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, Judy Resnik, Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Ron McNair: image christa.org

Today is also 4 days short of 8 years since the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed during rentry.

Space Shuttle Columbia (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-102) was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle inNASA’s orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew members were killed.

The investigation found that 82 seconds after launch a large piece of foam insulating material from the external tank broke free and struck the leading edge of the shuttle’s left wing, damaging the protective carbon heat shielding panels. This damage allowed super-heated gases to enter the wing structure during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere and caused the destruction of the Columbia.

Columbia was commanded by Rick Husband and piloted by William McCool. The mission specialists were Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark; and the payload specialist was Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon: image NASA

Currently the 3 operational orbiters are the

Space Shuttles Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.


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Snow in all US States except Florida

January 12, 2011

A map of snowfall in the United States is revealing right now: 49 states have snow on this 1/11/11 and only one does not.

From the southern snow storm heading north, which is affecting air travel, to the pending storm in New York City, and flurries out west, there’s plenty of white stuff going around.

The lone state without a flake? It’s the Sunshine State…Florida. Locals are celebrating the fact, though interestingly, parts of the state saw snow just days ago.

Even Hawaii has snow, in Mauna Kea on the Big Island.

 

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Now conservationists come out against wind power

January 3, 2011
Whooping Crane

Whooping crane: Image via Wikipedia

Officials with American Bird Conservancy on Wednesday cited data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that estimates 400,000 birds of various species are killed by turbine blades annually reports the Omaha World Herald.

One of the nation’s largest bird conservation groups says rapid construction of wind energy projects will endanger several avian species……That includes the whooping crane, a famous migratory bird and annual visitor to central Nebraska.

“Golden eagles, whooping cranes and greater sage-grouse are likely to be among the birds most affected by poorly planned and sited wind projects,” said Kelly Fuller, a spokeswoman for the conservancy.

“Unless the government acts now to require that the wind industry respect basic wildlife safeguards, these three species will be at ever greater risk.”

Officials with Nebraska Public Power District and MidAmerican Energy Co. said potential wind farm developments are carefully examined by experts and conservationists to determine their ecological impact.

“We monitor for bird kills but haven’t seen anything of significance,” said Mark Becker, an NPPD spokesman. “But we have not heard of any endangered species or any endangered birds being killed in Nebraska.”


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Honda takes to the air

December 24, 2010

From the WSJ:

Honda Motor Co. says the first FAA-conforming version of the small business jet it has been working on for years made its first flight. The plane, called the HondaJet, flew from the company’s Honda Aircraft Co. operation at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, N.C.

HondaJet first flight:image Honda Motor Co.

While an earlier version called a proof-of-concept aircraft has logged more than 500 hours of flight testing, flying the version built to Federal Aviation Administration rules is what really counts toward bringing the plane to market. Honda’s project is part of a renewed and growing intersection between automobiles and aviation that is occurring around personal- and business-transport. Honda touts the same qualities for the plane, such as “dynamic performance” and efficiency, as it does for its cars. The company has said it is essentially applying lessons learned in auto manufacturing to the aircraft business

HondaJet First Conforming Flight

HondaJet First Conforming Flight: image Honda Motor Co.

Honda says it will build five FAA-conforming jets for testing before ramping up production in 2012. The company says it has more than 100 orders for the light business jets, which have a top speed around 483 mph and a ceiling of 43,000 feet. Honda plans to deliver the first one in the third quarter of 2012.

HondaJet interior

First flight video is at http://hondajet.honda.com/

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US: Polar bears are “threatened” but not “endangered”

December 23, 2010
Polar Bear (Sow And Cub), Arctic National Wild...

Polar Bear (Sow And Cub), Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska: Image via Wikipedia

In spite of a great deal of PR from alarmist and global warming lobbies in the past week, the US has decided not to change the status of polar bears from “threatened” to “endangered”.

From the Washington Post:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told a U.S. District Court judge Wednesday that the threatened designation will not change because polar bears were not considered to be in danger of extinction at the time of the listing in 2008.

“The Service explained how its biologists had concluded in 2008 that the polar bear was not facing sudden and catastrophic threats [and] was still a widespread species that had not been restricted to a critically small range or critically low numbers,” the agency said in a statement.

Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the administration’s decision “a huge disappointment.” Arctic ice, the bears’ hunting ground, is melting and bears are starving to death, she said.

“It’s a wasted opportunity to do the right thing,” Siegel said. “The government’s own studies show about an 80 percent chance of extinction of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears in the next 40 years.”

AS WUWT reports

Some enironmentalists heads are exploding right about now. This pretty well slams the door on the polar bears threatened by global warming meme. Now we know why there was a flurry of questionable press releases this past week like these:

Polar bears no longer on ‘thin ice’: researchers say polar bears could face brighter future: “a combination of greenhouse gas mitigation and control of adverse human activities in the Arctic can lead to a more promising future for polar bear populations and their sea ice habitat“

Polar bears: On thin ice? Extinction can be averted, scientists say
Cutting greenhouse gases now is the key

Polar bears still on thin ice, but cutting greenhouse gases now can avert extinction

or as the BBC puts it

Polar bears not endangered, US confirms

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US shale gas challenges Russian natural gas in Europe

November 12, 2010
Natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe.

Natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe: image via Wikipedia

“Peak gas”  like “peak food” and “peak resources” and like all “peak scenarios” keeps getting postponed. The US is awash with shale gas and has started re-exporting LNG it had contracted for to Europe challenging the dominance of Russian supplies of natural gas.

Money control reports:

The United States may play a role this winter in loosening Russia’s grip on the European market for natural gas by shipping liquefied natural gas across the Atlantic. Awash with domestic shale gas and with little need to import extra fuel, the United States has started re-exporting LNG cargoes, which firms had previously imported under contract, to countries where gas prices are much higher.

Such shipments could contribute to a growing pool of cheaper LNG going to Russia’s biggest export market this winter. In the longer term, U.S. plans to build plants to liquefy shale gas could create another rival to Russian pipelines. The first re-export cargo from the United States to Britain — a key access point for LNG into northern Europe via an Interconnector pipeline to Belgium — is set to sail over the weekend. “It is a landmark shipment,” said Zach Allen at NATS LNG analysts in Raleigh North Carolina. “LNG has, through the Interconnector, played a major role in reducing intake of Russian gas into western Europe.”

U.S. shale gas has already forced many LNG producers that had hoped to supply the North American market to find alternative buyers, with many cargoes ending up in Europe and driving spot gas prices below the price of oil-indexed Russian gas.

US re-exports to Europe are the latest sign that increases in shale gas production have transformed the global gas market. The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday that a decade-long period of oversupply was likely to push oil-indexed gas sellers to accept lower prices.

In February, Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom postponed it’s Shtokman LNG project because the United States, its target market, did not need more imports. Major European pipeline gas supplier Statoil has been forced to find alternative markets for LNG it had hoped to send to the United States, often selling it into Europe. Qatar, the world’s largest producer and exporter of LNG, has also pushed into both Norwegian and Russian markets by making large deliveries of cheap LNG into Britain and Belgium. US LNG imports have fallen to contractual minimums as gas prices have sagged, forcing importers whose terminals are sitting idle to change strategy and re-export to make the most of higher prices overseas.

US gas at USD 4.1 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) was about USD 3.3/mmbtu below UK prices on Tuesday and just under half the price of Russian gas in Europe in October, according to International Monetary Fund data. About 20 billion cubic feet of gas has already been re-exported from the United States this year, with some sent to Asia, where buyers have paid nearly USD 10 per mmbtu, and some to Latin America and the Middle East.

More of those US loaded cargoes could head to Britain over coming months, given that winter price increases are sharper in northern Europe than in the United States and that imports by South American and Middle Eastern buyers are usually confined to summer.

“US exports to Europe will remain rather exotic, but they underline once again the big risks for Russia of focusing some of its future projects on US markets,” said Valery Nesterov, energy analyst at Moscow-based Troika Dialog brokerage.

Cheniere Energy, operator of the Sabine Pass import terminal in Louisiana, announced plans in June to build a liquefaction plant at the terminal. It said on Tuesday that US bank Morgan Stanley hoped to secure some of its export capacity. Pending approval, the plant would export US-produced shale gas to markets all over the globe from 2015. It would be the first US LNG export plant in 40 years — following the old Kenai facility which supplies Asia from Alaska — and would be well placed to supply Europe. “LNG supplies from the United States can help lower gas prices in Europe and Asia and ultimately help lift prices in the States,” said Mikhail Korchemkin from Pennsylvania-based East European Gas Analysis.

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China downgrades US bonds as trade surplus expands

November 10, 2010

The Telegraph:

One of China’s leading credit rating agencies has downgraded United States of America government debt in response to what it sees as deliberate devaluation of the dollar by quantitative easing and other means.

If China, now the second biggest economy in the world, stops buying US government bonds this could have a very negative effect on the global recovery. The Dagong Global Credit Rating Company analysis is highly critical of American attempts to borrow their way out of debt. It criticises competitive currency devaluation and predicts a “long-term recession”.

Dagong Global Credit says: “In order to rescue the national crisis, the US government resorted to the extreme economic policy of depreciating the U.S. dollar at all costs and this fully exposes the deep-rooted problem in the development and the management model of national economy.

The analysis concludes:  “The potential overall crisis in the  world resulting from the US dollar depreciation will increase the uncertainty of the U.S.  economic recovery. Under the circumstances that none of the economic factors  influencing the U.S. economy has turned better explicitly it is possible that the US will continue to expand the use of its loose monetary policy, damaging the interests the creditors.

“Therefore, given the current situation, the United States may face much unpredictable risks in solvency in the coming one to two years. Accordingly, Dagong assigns negative outlook on both local and foreign currency sovereign credit ratings of the United States.”

Max King, global investment strategist at Investec Asset Management, said: “Dagong is well respected as an independent credit rating agency which takes a more conservative view than better-known American credit rating agencies.

“It is interesting to see what people with money outside the American sphere of influence think.  Until recently, the US had been regarded as beyond reproach but now independent analysts say the position is deteriorating and likely to deteriorate further.

Meanwhile Xinhua reports the trade figures for October:

China’s exports rose 22.9 percent in October from a year earlier to 135.98 billion U.S. dollars, while imports increased 25.3 percent to 108.83 billion U.S. dollars, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Wednesday.

China’s trade surplus expanded sharply to 27.15 billion U.S. dollars last month from 16.88 billion U.S. dollars in September, making the October figure the second highest this year after July’s 28.73 billion U.S. dollars.

The higher-than-expected trade surplus would add pressure for the yuan’s appreciation and exacerbate the already grave inflation problem in China, said ANZ Bank economist Liu Ligang.

In the first 10 months, China’s trade surplus totaled 147.77 billion U.S. dollars, down 6.7 percent compared with the same period last year.

Foreign trade with the European Union, China’s largest trade partner, grew 32.9 percent year on year to 388.42 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months.

Trade with the United States climbed 29.8 percent to 310.71 billion U.S. dollars during the January-October period. China-Japan trade totaled 239.28 billion U.S. dollars, up 31.3 percent year on year.


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Mount Merapi rumbles on while Anak Krakatau crater expands and Obama flies in to Jakarta

November 9, 2010
A closer look at Anak Krakatau

Anak Krakatau: Image via Wikipedia

Yogyakarta’s Adi Sutjipto domestic and international airport has been closed until at least next Monday Nov. 15, at which time another decision would be made. Despite the ban on civilian and commercial flights in and out of Yogyakarta, the Indonesian Air Force was still operating Hercules flights to deliver aid to the internally displaced.
More than 300,000 people are believed to be housed in government shelters.

Indonesian rescue workers resumed efforts to retrieve bodies of victims from an eruption of Mount Merapi in central Java on Nov. 5, after surface temperatures forced a halt to the search on Monday. More than 320,000 people are housed at evacuation centers outside the 20-kilometer safety zone in four regencies in Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces, the National Disaster Management Agency said in a statement on its Web site today. Evacuees reached 280,000 people yesterday.

“Volcanic activity is relatively stable this morning compared with yesterday,” said Oka Hamid, a spokesman at Red Cross Indonesia’s Yogyakarta branch. “We recovered two remains in one village but we have to leave another four as the field is hard to reach and they’re all covered with thick ash.”

Meanwhile –

The crater of Anak Krakatau in the Sunda Strait has expanded to a diameter of 25-26 meters, an Indonesian volcanologist says. The news comes as the frequency of eruptions of the volcano, once misidentified as Krakatoa, increases: On Friday there were 615 eruptions, on Saturday 623 eruptions, and on Sunday 668.
Anton S Pambudi, a official from Banten province monitoring the eruptions, said the eruptions over the past two weeks had changed the shape of the crater. Authorities have warned that several other volcanoes in Indonesia are showing increased signs of activity. These include Mount Karangetang on Siau Island in North Sulawesi and Mount Ibu on Halmahera Island in North Maluku.

Banten Governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah said she believed that Anak Krakatau did not pose a threat and that the eruptions, which can be seen from the western tip of Java Island, were interesting to observe.

Philippine Airlines Inc., Emirates, Eva Airways Corp. and Valuair Ltd. resumed flights to Jakarta on Monday after suspending them for two days, PT Angkasa Pura, the Soekarno-Hatta international airport operator said on its Web site. Singapore Airlines Ltd., Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Japan Airlines Corp. restarted services on Sunday.

President Obama arrives in a few hours in Jakarta.

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Obama concludes India visit – leaves for Indonesia

November 9, 2010

The Hindu:

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday left here for Indonesia after his three-day visit to India, during which he announced support for New Delhi’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council and asked Pakistan to bring perpetrators of 26/11 attacks to justice.

Barack Obama with wife

President and Mrs. Obama leaving India

Mr. Obama and his wife Michelle were given a warm send-off by Minister-in-Waiting Salman Khursheed, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and other officials. U.S. Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer was also present.

The Air Force One carrying the US First Couple took off from the Delhi Airport at 8.54 AM.

BBC:

The Indian media has hailed US President Barack Obama’s trip to India, saying it had helped forge an “enduring partnership” between the two countries. It lauded Mr Obama for backing India’s ambition for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.

In an address to India’s parliament at the end of a three-day visit on Monday, Mr Obama backed India’s bid to gain a permanent seat on the UN Security council and lavished praised on the country. He also said safe havens for militants in Pakistan were “unacceptable”.

The Hindu said that Mr Obama’s support for a permanent UN Security Council seat for India “represents a significant evolution of American policy towards both India and the world body”.

“Even if he has essentially handed the Indians a cheque that cannot be easily cashed, the US President’s words will strengthen India’s hand as it seeks to press for reform in the UN,” the newspaper said.

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