January 3 News Items

Iridium Approved for Air Traffic Safety Services (Source: Iridium)
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council approved standards and recommended practices (SARPs) that will permit Iridium Satellite to provide Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Services for commercial aircraft on transoceanic flights. The ICAO decision means that member states can now approve Iridium satellite equipment to meet the international requirements for redundant communications when flying over ocean regions.

SeaLaunch Continues Thuraya-3 Mission (Source: SeaLaunch)
The Odyssey Launch Platform and the SeaLaunch Commander have departed SeaLaunch Home Port, for the rescheduled Thuraya-3 mission. Liftoff is now planned for January 15, in a 44-minute launch window that opens at 3:49am Pacific Standard Time (11:49 GMT). Following delays in November due to unusually strong currents at the launch site, Sea Launch has increased power and fuel capabilities on the Launch Platform and evaluated the use of existing margins on identified launch parameters - all of which are intended to enhance launch availability.

Chinese Military Space Plane? (Source: Wall Street Journal)
China's military has long harbored ambitions of dominating space, as last year's satellite-targeting exercise showed. Now comes news that Chinese engineers may be much further along than previously thought in achieving one of their major goals: building a military space plane. On Dec. 11, an anonymous blogger posted a photo of a new Chinese space plane on a Chinese Web site devoted to military issues. The photo -- the first and only of the plane -- shows a small spacecraft with heat shielding similar to that on U.S. and Russian space shuttles. The Chinese characters for "Shenlong," or "Divine Dragon," were included.

Spacehab Regains NASDAQ Compliance (Source: Spacehab)
Spacehab has received notice from the NASDAQ Stock Market that the Company has regained compliance with Marketplace Rules 4310(c)(4) and 4310(c)(3), relating to the maintenance of a minimum $1.00 bid price and $2.5 million minimum shareholders’ equity requirements, respectively. In accordance with NASDAQ Marketplace Rules, the Company was required to evidence a closing bid price of at least $1.00 per share for ten consecutive trading days which it completed on December 12, 2007. Further, the Company regained compliance with the minimum stockholders’ equity requirement as a result of a recently completed exchange offer of notes for equity.

LSST Receives $30 Million from Charles Simonyi and Bill Gates (Source: LSST)
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project is pleased to announce receipt of two major gifts: $20M from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and $10M from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Under development since 2000, the LSST is a public-private partnership. This gift enables the construction of LSST's three large mirrors; these mirrors take over five years to manufacture. The first stages of production for the two largest mirrors are now beginning at the Mirror Laboratory at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Other key elements of the LSST system will also be aided by this commitment.

The LSST leverages advances in large telescope design, imaging detectors, and computing to engage everyone in a journey of cosmic discovery. Proposed for “first light” in 2014, the 8.4-meter LSST will survey the entire visible sky deeply in multiple colors every week with its three-billion pixel digital camera, probing the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move.

Editorial: NASA Needs to do a Better Job with School Science Programs (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
As NASA sets priorities with tighter budgets, it seem to be forgetting a fundamental part of its mission: To inspire young people's interest in science. The National Research Council found NASA's efforts hit and miss, hampered by instability and the agency's poor job evaluating its programs. While the NSC praises NASA for its efforts to tie school science experiments to missions, it points out the agency does a bad job measuring the lessons' effectiveness. Rigorous evaluations are needed so NASA can focus its dwindling resources on programs that work; its education budget has dropped from $207 million to $153 million in the past four years. NASA ought to do better. Its future depends on the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Zero-G Awarded NASA Microgravity Services Contract (Source: NASA)
NASA has awarded a contract to Zero Gravity Corp.s to manage and operate an aircraft to perform reduced gravity parabolic flights while carrying NASA-operated experiments and personnel. The parabolic flights will provide the means to replicate the reduced gravity environment of space for various areas of research needed to further NASA's understanding of space travel. These include aeronautical research, fluid physics, combustion, material sciences and life sciences. Additionally, work done during these flights will assist engineers in developing NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle, as well as contribute to improved flights for astronauts on the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

The aircraft will fly primarily out of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The contract's one-year base period, valued at $4.7 million, began on Jan. 1. Four one-year options could add just over $5 million per year to the fixed price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract total. These options could extend the period of performance to a total of five years, for an estimated $25.4 million.

Small Satellites Launch Big Plan (Source: Wall Street Journal)
A veteran space scientist turned entrepreneur is making a big bet that a new generation of small, low-cost satellites can revolutionize the collection of weather and environmental data used to track storms and monitor climate shifts. Tom Yunck's closely held company, GeoOptics LLC of Pasadena, Calif., is raising money in an effort to increase the accuracy and lower the cost of satellites used to do everything from predicting hurricanes to documenting climate change. GeoOptics aims to build tiny, low-orbit satellites to record how radio signals bend as they travel through the atmosphere.

How Humanity Will Survive (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Unless you can avoid a newspaper in 2008, expect to be reading a lot about human extinction. In June arrives the hundredth anniversary of the Tunguska impact, which leveled 800 square miles of Siberia. By happenstance, a rock of similar size may smash into Mars on Jan. 30, affording scientists a close-up view of a planetary disaster. The new year hadn't even started when NASA last week was announcing discovery of a supermassive black hole spraying deadly radiation into a neighboring galaxy, ending life on an unknown number of planets in its path.

Anyone Out There? (Source: ABC News)
For 40 years now, the antennae of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence have kept up the vigil, patiently scanning the sky for any signal that might have been sent our way by beings elsewhere in the universe, signals that presumably would stand out from the raw radio noise emitted by stars and galaxies. So far, there hasn't been a peep. A few oddities, none of which withstood scrutiny. Since 1984 the SETI Institute has been privately funded (backers have included Paul Allen of Microsoft fame).

But the believers still believe. There are so many stars out there, so many of them with planets, they argue, that the odds make it overwhelmingly likely someone is out there, sending radio signals that we will find. If only we have the time and resources to keep listening. For all its financial ups and downs, SETI says it is gathering 500 times more raw data from radio telescopes than just a short time ago. Eight years ago, it began SETI@home, an effort to use the processors in people's computers to crunch the vast numbers. 320,000 personal computers are put to use when their users might otherwise turn them off. Now it's expanding, and looking for new volunteers. New receivers, particularly on the Arecibo antenna in Puerto Rico, are pulling in 300 gigabytes per day.

Hot on The Trail of Cosmic Rays (Source: Space.com)
The mysterious origins of cosmic rays that slam into the Earth's atmosphere could soon be revealed, thanks to a better ground-based sensor that costs less than balloons or satellites. Cosmic rays are thought to come from either the center of the galaxy or a nearby supernova, and knowing which is true will help astrophysicists paint a more accurate picture of the cosmos. "Cosmic rays are not a spectator phenomenon in the galaxy — they have a role in galactic dynamics," said Scott Wakely, a University of Chicago physicist. "To understand the galaxy in a full sense, you need to understand cosmic rays." Visit http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080102-tw-cerenkov-radiation.html to view the article.

Eight-Year-Old Boy Enjoys Adventure of A Lifetime on Zero Gravity Flight (Source: ZERO-G)
Eight-year-old boys dream of being superheroes -- flying high above the clouds with nothing to limit themselves but their imaginations. For young adventurer Danner Cronise, ZERO-G turned this dream into reality and enabled Danner to fly like Superman and enjoy 10-times more hang-time than the world's best basketball player -- all while making history as the youngest person ever to experience a weightless flight.

Distant Star Sheds Light on the Birth of Planets (Source: AFP)
Astronomers poring over a young star 180 light years from Earth have found evidence that stellar birth can lead to the formation of a planet only millions of years later, a mere blink on the cosmic timescale. The mainstream theory is that planets are forged from a disc of gas and dusty debris that is left over from the creation of a star. How long this process takes is a matter of debate, though. Earth is believed to be about 4.5 billion years old, and the Sun around 100 million years older. But observations of some exoplanets -- planets in solar systems other than our own -- suggest the timescale could be much shorter, especially when it comes to the formation of gas giants rather than rocky planets like Earth.