December 29 News Items

Malaysia 'Using Satellite to Fight Illegal Logging' (Source: AFP)
Malaysia is zooming in on forests with a satellite in order to fight illegal logging which its government says is harming the major timber exporting country. Darus Ahmad, deputy director-general with the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency, said the "eye in the sky" program was put in place in October. Darus said that using satellite images the authorities can establish a national forest inventory of the country's total area of forest cover. They can then check whether logging in a particular area is legal or not, he said, adding that the facility was currently available in the western peninsular part of Malaysia only. (12/29)

Satellites May Support Mileage Tax in Oregon (Source: Albany Democrat Herald)
A year ago, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced it had demonstrated that a new way to pay for roads — via a mileage tax and satellite technology — could work. Now Gov. Ted Kulongoski says he’d like the legislature to take the next step. As part of a transportation-related bill he has filed for the 2009 legislative session, the governor says he plans to recommend “a path to transition away from the gas tax as the central funding source for transportation.”

According to the policies he has outlined online, Kulongoski proposes to continue the work of the special task force that came up with and tested the idea of a mileage tax to replace the gas tax. A GPS-based system would keep track of the in-state mileage driven. The governor wants the task force “to partner with auto manufacturers to refine technology that would enable Oregonians to pay for the transportation system based on how many miles they drive.”

When the task force’s study and test were in the news in 2006 and 2007, critics worried that the technology could be used to track where vehicles go, not just how far they travel, and that this information would somehow be stored by the government. A ODOT official in charge of the project has tried to assure the public that tracking people’s travels was not in the plans. (12/29)

Plant a Tree in the Space Explorers' Forest (Source: Yuri's Night)
Yuri's Night and a consortia of other space organizations, in partnership with American Forests, have created a project to bring Earth and Space a little closer together. We are planting a Space Explorers' Forest near Mojave, California, replacing trees that burned in the 2003 San Bernardino fires through the American Forests Global ReLeaf program. It will be a place that everyone will know was planted by people committed to space and committed to making a difference on Earth. Click here for information. (12/29)

Virginia's Orbital Adding Workers for Big NASA Project (Source: Washington Post)
Lots of local companies have announced layoffs this month: Carlyle Group, Danaher, FBR Capital Markets, Vanda Pharmaceuticals. But at least one plans on adding jobs. On the strength of a $3.5 billion NASA contract it won last week, Orbital Sciences said it will probably add 500 to 600 jobs locally, including engineers, technicians and program managers. The new hires will be involved in the company's newest contract, to help carry cargo in unmanned space missions to the International Space Station for NASA. They also will work on major deals Orbital has with the Pentagon for missile defense work and to sell commercial communications satellites. (12/29)

Financial Crisis Will Not Affect Russia's Aerospace Commitments (Source: Itar Tass)
The financial crisis will not affect Russia's international commitments under aerospace programs, director of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) Anatoly Perminov said. "We'll be fulfilling the obligations taken by Russia within the framework of the effective international programs," Perminov underlined. (12/29)

Satellite Radio Still Reaches for the Payday (Source: New York Times)
Mel Karmazin, chief of Sirius XM, says it competes with technology — digital music players, Internet radio via iPhone — rather than other companies. Mr. Stern, the ribald radio jock who once commanded attention with each off-color utterance and obscene joke, mused recently on the air that he was thinking of retiring when his contract expires in two years. “This is my swan song,” he said. Back in the day when Mr. Stern was on free radio and had an audience of 12 million, that remark would have cascaded through the media universe. But by switching to satellite radio three years ago, Mr. Stern swapped cultural cachet for big money.

Yet Mr. Stern’s retirement chatter did get one group talking: investors fretting over the fate of Sirius XM Radio, the satellite radio company that has been Mr. Stern’s home for the past three years. Today, five months after regulators approved a merger of Sirius and XM, satellite radio’s pioneers and former rivals, in a deal that was supposed to deliver their industry to the promised land of profits and permanence, the company faces an uncertain future. Click here to view the article. (12/29)

Editorial: Exploring Space - Program Vital to Future (Source: El Paso Times)
There's little doubt that a great deal of humankind's future is tied to the exploration of space. America's government space agency, NASA, has some important moments coming up that could require some sensitive handling to keep the space program going... Space exploration is an important program, even a vital necessity. In these times of economic stress, it may look to many like a waste of money, but it isn't. It has a lot to do with the successful future of this country and the world. (12/29)