July 4 News Items

Aerospace Employment Climbs Again (Source: AIA)
The number of workers in the aerospace industry continued its steady climb in the last six months, reaching a total of 651,700 in March. This extends a trend since the industry hit an employment low in 2003. The statistics underscore aerospace as a cornerstone of the U.S. economy. (7/3)

KSC Officials Visit Embry-Riddle to Discuss Collaboration (Source: ERAU)
The Kennedy Space Center director led a team of KSC officials for a visit last week to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The group discussed common interests and opportunities for collaboration on a variety of projects. (7/4)

Ex-NASA Chief Was Flying High on Tax Dollars, Report Says (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Former NASA chief Sean O'Keefe wasted about $1,800 of taxpayer money using NASA planes to fly to Syracuse, N.Y., to play golf and to New York for an awards ceremony, according to a watchdog report. Investigators found the trips, in 2003 and 2004, were "not in compliance with then-existing NASA regulations, resulting in a wasteful expenditure of funds," according to the NASA Office of the Inspector General. But NASA has declined to demand repayment of the money, asserting that O'Keefe did not knowingly break the rules. The former administrator, who headed the agency from 2001 to 2005, also denied wrongdoing. (7/4)

Einstein Theory Passes Test in Space (Source: NSF)
Taking advantage of a unique cosmic configuration, astronomers have measured an effect predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in the extremely strong gravity of a pair of superdense neutron stars. Essentially, the famed physicist's 93-year-old theory passed yet another test. Scientists at McGill University used the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to do a four-year study of a double-star system unlike any other known in the Universe. The system is a pair of neutron stars, both of which are seen as pulsars that emit lighthouse-like beams of radio waves. (7/4)