John Glenn: Keep U.S. space shuttle flying

By Marcia Dunn, associated PressCAPE CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, USA — Mercury astronaut John Glenn, now 88, wants to NASA space shuttle to keep flying until their replacement is ready.Glenn joined the debate Monday on the future of America national in area and became the latest ex-astronaut to speak on this matter. He released a statement by the nine parties, in which he questioned the decision to retire the shuttle fleet and to be able to rely on Russia to take astronauts to the international space station. "We have a vehicle, why throw away? This works well, "the first American to orbit the Earth, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press," said he. Glenn is against paying the Russians 55.8 million USD for a person to fly U.S. astronauts to the space station and back. This is the price of a ticket starting in 2013; Right now, is for the valuation of US $ 26.3 million NASA and will jump to $ 51 million next year.Glenn does not believe the public realizes what happens to the forward area. "Turning to Russia and, as a result, under the control of Russia to our space program just doesn't sit right with me, and I don't think there are also people, American or not, either, "said Glenn, a former senator who ran a shuttle in orbit in 1998 at the age of 77. It included 89 next month.Glenn said, little, if any, money will be saved by cancelling the program Transfer from the airport, taking into account all the millions of dollars going to Russia to rocket races. Shuttle at least two flights a year to keep the station going and force work employed until something new comes along, he said.Astronaut wonders what happens if there is an accident and Soyuz rockets are grounded. He supposes space station — an investment of 100 billion dollars--would have to be abandoned. He also bezstresowej scientific research at the station will take a hit if the experiments must be run from Russia and have no way of getting back to Earth in bulk.President George w. Bush made the decision to retire, shuttle services and retarget the Moon six years ago in the wake of the Columbia tragedy. President Barack Obama keeps closing the transfer from the airport, you kill effort the Moon only two shuttle missions remain on the composition of the Official; the second almost certainly will be delayed until early next year. NASA is hoping the White House will add an additional ticket next summer before the end of the 30-year shuttle program.Glenn Democratic support Obama's plan, announced earlier this year on the space station by going to the year 2020 and give up on the basis of the moon now. But the original Mercury 7 astronauts, "said the nation needs a rocketship capable of lifting heavy loads — whether it is part of NASA'S Constellation program or something else — if astronauts ever to achieve asteroids and Mars. Private companies, in the meantime, interested in the performance of astronauts back to the space station and the need to first prove their ability and niezawodnoscGlenn noted. "I'm very often this momentum to the placing on the market," he said.Glenn said he waited it public, because he thought, "people would see the wisdom of" preserve the continuity of a shuttle. "If we're going to do anything, it must be done fairly quickly," he said.Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY Community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally and keep your language decent. Use the "report abuse" button to make the difference. Learn more.

Not only oil: methane can cause a "dead zone" in Gulf

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Design of new details on nationwide borrows earthquake

As far as the study of earthquakes, Professor of geology, Oregon State University Bob Lillie has a simple Theory: the more that is known, better persons can prepare and protect themselves.More knowledge about vulnerabilities in certain parts of the nation could lead to stricter building regulations in these places, so probably less overthrow structures, "he says."If we know about the risks, then we can bet on less risk, "Lillie says.Lillie is part of a group of scientists dealing with USArray, nationwide research project, which allows researchers to study earthquakes in unprecedented ways.The project, which includes a travelling with 400 sejsmografy high-quality, portable placed in temporary facilities, to reach the mark in the middle of this summer in its objective to measure the upheavals of the Earth's surface below from California to Maine, "says Project Director Bob Woodward. In the summer, the device will be installed in several countries, including South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, he said. Number density and systematic position of equipment give researchers a much more detailed picture of seismic activity in the UNITED STATES, "he says. Scientists are intrigued by tremors detected in North-Western Pacific and installed additional equipment in order to learn more about them, "he says.The project, which is formed on the West Coast in 2004, is in the East so scientists can have a systematic way of studying the whole nation, Woodward says. Instruments, at a distance of approximately 40 miles from each other, stay on the site for two years, before they moved, Woodward says. USArray project is scheduled to reach the East coast by 2013, says.USArray's of the annual budget is around 13 million dollars annually from the National Science Foundation, "he says. As part of a wider project known as the EarthScope, also funded by the Foundation. EarthScope's objective is to examine the structure and evolution of North America and learn more about what causes earthquakes and volcanoes.Before the instruments have been installed, "he was kind of like taking pictures from a camera with only a few pixels," says Woodward. "400 Stations where recalls much higher camera resolution. Now you can directly see the seismic Waves rolling across the country. "The project was included in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, he says. Emily Brodsky, seismologist, which researches earthquake at the University of California-Santa Cruz, he says, "By the whole view, you can start to see these in a way never seen before."2011, sejsmografy will be in place near the site of some of the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history — an area known as the new Madrid fault between St. Louis and Memphis, Woodward says.Almost 200 years ago, in 1811 and 1812, a series of earthquakes centered in the nearby small town of New Madrid, Missouri was so strong that witnesses said the nearby Mississippi River began to flow back, "says Chuck Langston, Director of the Center for the study of earthquake and information at the University of Memphis."The earthquake was felt in Boston, "Langston says. "There is a transfer, which the River dammed up, and its part toward the back. Spectacular, must have been it. Big waves and water moving every which way. "Although California is commonly associated with earthquakes, says Woodward, vulnerabilities exist throughout the nation, stretching on the East coast of the UNITED STATES.More than 500 billion dollars of losses could result from strong earthquake in the area of Los Angeles, according to Jan 14 Congressional Research service report for Congress. "Estimation of even higher — around $ 900 billion — includes injury to heavily populated areas of the central corridor, New Jersey-Philadelphia if earthquake 6.5-magnitude occurred along the fault lying between New York and Philadelphia, "States the report.Can be changed to the earthquake occurred in the region, "says Michel Bruneau, engineering professor at the University of Buffalo, which has Done an earthquake in extensive research. Bruneau is a study in 2008, which finds the size-5 earthquake damaged buildings in New York in 1737; and quake magnitude-5.5 hit the region in 1884, according to research reported in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. Researchers wrote that there are stronger earthquakes in the area.Martin reports in Argus leader, Sioux Falls, S.D. guidance: sharing in the community of USA TODAY such please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally and keep your language decent. Use the "report abuse" button to make the difference. Learn more.

Radar reveals the extent of the ancient Egyptian city buried

In CAIRO, EGYPT (AP) — an Austrian archeological team used radar imaging to determine the scope of the ruins of the once 3.500 year-old foreign capital, said the Department concluded Egypt Antiquities Sunday with 1664. Egypt-1569 B.C. demolished by the Hyksos, Warrior people from Asia, possibly Semitic in originin the summer capital, which was in the area of the Northern Delta. Irene Mueller, the head of the Austrian team, said the main objective of the project is to determine how far extends Metro City.Imaging radar showed the outlines of streets, houses and temples behind the green box and the modern city of Tel holding al-Dabaa. Archaeology Chief Zahi Hawass said in a statement that such noninvasive techniques are the best way to determine the scope of the site. Delta Egypt is densely populated and heavily farmed, which makes it difficult, unlike in southern Egypt with his more Famous tombs and temples, extensive excavations desert.An Austrian team of archaeologists working in the site since 1975. Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY Community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally and keep your language decent. Use the "report abuse" button to make the difference. Learn more.

U.S.-Russian crew blasts to space station

By Peter Leonard, PressBAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — two Us Astronauts and a Russian Wigura issue, successfully Wednesday with the mission to the international space station, which will see the last ever swing visits with the orbiting Mir space laboratory.Astronauts U.S. Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker and Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin drawn in the Russian Soyuz rocket, its Pobudzacze incendiary Starry sky over Central Asia making steppe. Their Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft is set to reach stations Friday The trio will be on board the space station to see the final Shuttle — Endeavour — to depart from its last planned mission to the laboratory in November before the fleet is finally withdrew.Wheelock said he was saddened to see shuttle Go, but described his mission as an exciting new beginning. "Of course, is the change in our program ... but not always bad, is to change the "Wheelock, who takes over as Commander of the 25 Expedition as only the current crew returns to Earth in approximately three months, said the draft Conference news.From the airport szczekowych Venerable Soyuz will take over as the only means through which astronauts will be able to travel to the space station, which has raised some concerns about over-reliance on craft designed Soviet. Crowd astronauts relatives, space officials and others gasped in awe as they watched the rocket slowly dissapearing on distanceleaving ghostly white cloud. Broke into applause at the announcement of successful entry into orbit craft nine minutes after launch. "This was probably one of the more beautiful runs ever seen, "said NASA Spokesman Josh Byerly. shortly after the people at home Saw glittering dot space station quickly moving overhead in a rare coincidence.On Wednesday the rocket marked a landmark landmark, is the hundredth flight in the station.Wheelock said their mission will be the first to take full advantage of the capacity of the station as the orbiting Mir space lab. He said he was especially enthralled by your contribution to the engineering of new materials and its role in ensuring that the achievements in the field of medicine. "We are finally getting to the point when we use the international space station for its original purpose and that is that science and research, "Byerly said after the run.Wheelock, Colonel United States Army, returns to the space station for the first time since his club two weeks on the discovery at the end of 2007, when he and his colleagues, earned accolades for their work repairing facility energy generation.Walker is making her first trip to the space station, and thus the in the footsteps of her husband, Andrew Thomas, one of a handful of U.S. astronauts to live on board the Russian Mir station, the old in the 1990s.Like the other starts from the Baikonur Cosmodrome leased Russian in southern Kazakhstan, their mission had verified the routine.After installation of Poland for their pressure suits just passed to the North, the crew received the final message of encouragement from officials, including the head of the Russian space agency.In the final salute before mounting the bus to the console is to launching a group of well-wishers were welcomed by Walker with the letters spelling out "Go Shannon!"Before the bus engines, Yurchikhin by young daughter, Yelena, were held aloft and kissed her father through the glass.In the console the astronauts satellite, closely linked to their seats in the rocket some two hours before the start, when their families and colleagues waited anxiously on the platform to display a little more than one kilometre from the hotel.Against the background of the steppe, starkly dim light on the gantry up rocket Soyuz shimmered on the «known as Gagarin's Pad. Is the site from which the SOVIET UNION sent Yuri Gagarin in 1961, in addition to become the first man in space.Within one hour prior to the launch of regular updates on the final preparations crackled with speakers platform view.When it came time, rocket roared to life and not touching the ground before gradually lifted off to heaven wywracania, dramatically moving shadow sky white phosphorous.Three person crew include the Russian commander Alexander Skvortskov, a NASA flight engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Russian Mikhail Kornienko, who on the orbiting Mir space laboratory since April. Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY Community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally and keep your language decent. Use the "report abuse" button to make the difference. Learn more.

Jimmy Buffett Gulf rescue mission: rescuing marine life

Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett and two friends are hoping their new rescue boats may save birds and marine life under threat from the worst of the nation. Boats specially designed to navigate shallow marshlands, coming from a wide range of wildlife, coast of the Gulf ".In principle, we can set something on a cocktail napkin and provided the idea, "says Mark Castlow, a boat builder in Vero Beach, Fla. That was the second day of the disaster, he says, as he watched television images of the spill and saw the need for a boat that could achieve the shallow waters of the Gulf Coast estuaries.Castlow shared the idea with his friend Buffett, who agreed to operate the boat cost $ 43,000, "he says. "Called and Jimmy and says:" Let's go for it. Let's do it, "" Castlow says. "It is so like all of us. He's got in suicide. "Shortage of equipment to help contain oil — and rescuing wildlife — have been a recurring problem since the April 20 deepwater Horizon on oil rigs, the outbreak of the Carys Mitchelmore, says he is a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "If you can get in these areas, shallow and rescue everything can be oiled, this is great," says Mitchelmore, who has testified before Congress on oil spill pollution. "If anyone can help, I think it is an excellent idea, especially if you do not want to be costing anything."Buffett, who graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1969, met with school President Martha Saunders this month brainstorming ways it can help, "says Beth Taylor, University news and Media Relations Manager.Miss decided to grant the first boat at the Gulf Coast Research Lab in Ocean Springs, the composer then. He was expected to arrive late this week or next week, and Castlow says there are plans to build three other boats of the same type of boat is needed, "says Taylor, because boats lab will not be able to navigate in shallow waters, such as the 10 cm depth, such as new, donated. "Our boats are larger, and they cannot be find around in the shallow water, "he says. "This will be used by our scientists and our graduate schools to go out in the estuaries and wetlands."Castlow and Jimbo Meador, friend and colleague at Castlow's Dragonfly Boatworks, designed for boats s.w.a.t. — an acronym for shallow water account terminal — running misting to cool the injured wildlife, after he is taken on board in the Gulf of summer heat. "Crown wraps around the boat, and that there is a great case, because now you can work in the shade and misting," says Castlow that "sounds like a great idea, because you might want to do meaningful right there," says Ed Verge, an instructor, a boat building lead Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina, N.C.Madilyn Fletcher, Director of the school of the University of South Carolina for the reduction of stress on the injured party srodowiskamówi nature is the key to the animals recover and idea is sensible. "Everything you can do to save these bird damaged is all the better, and the more you can do to reduce the load on them when you are trying to do this is all for the better, as well as" Fletcher says.Monday 724 birds apparently array had been rescued off the coast of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, in accordance with the consolidated fish and report collection of wild animals, which tracks the number of reported by government agencies and rescue Centers to the Unified area command in the zone of the spill. 247 other birds of the five Member States have been found dead. "When you see something is thinning what to do for life — what you love — it simply tore everyone, "says Castlow."Simply we thought, "we have the opportunity to make a difference here." "Sharing in the Community Guidelines: USA TODAY so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally and keep your language decent. Use the "report abuse" button to make the difference. Learn more.

Obama Plan to land on the asteroid may be unrealistic to 2025

By Traci Watson, Special for USA TODAYMillions of miles from Earth, two astronauts hover weightlessly next to a giant space rock, selecting pebbles for scientific research. The spaceship where they'll sleep floats just overhead. Beyond it, barely visible in the sky, is a glittering speck. It's Earth.It sounds like a science-fiction movie, but this surreal scene could, if President Obama has his way, become a reality. However, unlike Hollywood depictions in such movies as Armageddon, it's going to be a lot harder to pull off.

Almost 50 years after President Kennedy proposed sending a man to the moon "before this decade is out," Obama has set an equally improbable goal. He has proposed a 2025 date for NASA to land humans on an asteroid, a ball of rock hurtling around the sun.

The moon is 240,000 miles away. A trip to an asteroid would be 5 million miles — at a minimum.

Why go?

If the mission ever gets launched, it would mark a milestone just as significant as Neil Armstrong's "small step" on the moon, experts say. To go to an asteroid, humans would have to venture for the first time into "deep space," where the sun, not the Earth, is the main player.

An asteroid trip "would really be our first step as a species outside the Earth-moon system," says planetary scientist Andy Rivkin of the Applied Physics Laboratory. "This would be taking off the training wheels."

Asteroids have always been passed over as a destination for human explorers. Then-president George H.W. Bush wanted NASA to go to Mars, while his son, George W. Bush, chose the moon. During the past six years, NASA spent $9 billion building a spaceship, rocket and other gear to help reach the second Bush's goal of returning humans to the lunar surface by 2020.

In February, Obama took steps toward killing Bush's moon program, which was beset by technical troubles and money woes. Two months later, in a speech at Cape Canaveral, Obama announced that the astronauts' next stop is an asteroid.

So far, the Obama administration has been quiet on the need for a major sum of money to accomplish his goal. And unlike Kennedy, who used Sputnik to promote the moon mission, Obama doesn't have a geopolitical imperative to justify the goal. Congress is resisting Obama's change of direction, which could delay investment in the program.

If Obama wants to bolster his cause, there's a rationale he could cite: An asteroid could wipe out as many human lives as a nuclear bomb. The dominant scientific theory posits that dinosaurs went extinct because of a direct hit from an asteroid as wide as San Francisco. A space rock big enough to kill thousands slams into Earth every 30,000 years, according to a January report from the National Research Council.

That scenario provided the rationale for asteroid missions in various Hollywood movies, including Armageddon. The 1998 film, which starred Bruce Willis, grossed more than $200 million at box office in the U.S. and more than $500 million worldwide. It went on to be a staple on cable television.

But if Americans think they have an understanding of the challenge of going to an asteroid, they're wrong. "I loved the movie," says Laurie Leshin, a top NASA official who is involved in the early planning stages of an asteroid mission, although "it was completely inaccurate."

Obama's plans for NASA have drawn many opponents, including Armstrong, but their criticism centers on the administration's reliance on private space companies to ferry astronauts to orbit. The goal of an asteroid hasn't been questioned as much.

That doesn't mean it would be easy. Although experts agree it could be done, here are four asteroid-size reasons why life won't imitate art.

•Astronauts can't hop on a space shuttle to get there.

In Armageddon, Willis' character and his crew blast off in two modified space shuttles to reach the killer asteroid. But NASA has long planned to retire the shuttles within the next year. And even if they weren't all headed to museums, they're useless as asteroid transporters.

The shuttles were built only to circle Earth, says Dan Adamo, a former mission control engineer who has studied human missions to asteroids. They don't carry the fuel to jump into deep space, and their heat shields aren't designed to withstand the extra-high temperatures of returning from a destination other than the Earth's orbit.

What's needed instead is a giant rocket on the scale of the monstrous Saturn V — taller than Big Ben — that propelled man to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. Such a project is "a difficult challenge" that will cost in the multiple billions of dollars, says Ray Colladay, a member of NASA's advisory council.

NASA spent more than $52 billion in 2010 dollars to develop and build the Saturn V. Building a 21st-century version can be done but will require a sharp increase in the NASA budget later this decade, some space experts say.

"That's the issue everybody wants to duck right now, because it's uncomfortable to face that," Colladay says.

NASA would also need to build a spaceship where the astronauts can live and store all the oxygen, food and water needed for a long voyage. One option is to launch a small space pod carrying the crew, then, once safely in space, unleash an inflatable habitat, Leshin says.

NASA has little practice with such a blow-up spacecraft.

•The trip takes a long, long time.

Willis and company arrive at their target asteroid in a few days, if not a few hours. Admittedly, it's streaking toward Earth at the time. NASA would prefer to go to one before it gets to that stage.

Studies by Adamo, former astronaut Thomas Jones and others show that a round trip to a target asteroid would typically take five to six months. That assumes NASA shoots for one of the 40 or so asteroids that come closest to the Earth's path in the 2020s and 2030s and relies on spacecraft similar to those NASA had designed for Bush's moon mission.

Another problem during the journey — the crew would spend months "cooking" in space radiation, says NASA's Dave Korsmeyer, who has compiled a list of the most accessible asteroids. Shuttle passengers are somewhat screened from such radiation by Earth's magnetic field. Astronauts who leave Earth's orbit have no such protection.

Space radiation raises the risk of cancer and in extreme cases causes nausea and vomiting, says Walter Schimmerling, former program scientist of NASA's space radiation program. The astronauts might need to take drugs to prevent the ill effects of radiation.

Then there's the "prolonged isolation and confinement" that the crew will have to endure, says Jason Kring of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "This crew will be more on their own than any other crew in history."

If there's an emergency halfway into the trip, the astronauts would not be able to get home in a few days, as the Apollo 13 crew did. Instead it would take weeks, if not months.

•Humans can't walk or drive on an asteroid.

Once they land on the asteroid "the size of Texas," the heroes of Armageddon run over the spiky terrain, except when they're steering two tank-like vehicles. In reality, even the biggest asteroids have practically no gravity. So anything in contact with the surface could easily drift away.

"You don't land on an asteroid," says former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, a longtime advocate of asteroid studies. "You pull up to one and dock with it. ... And getting away from it, all you have to do is sneeze and you're gone." He envisions a spaceship hovering next to the asteroid and occasionally firing its thrusters to stay in place.

Astronauts wouldn't walk on an asteroid. They would drift next to it, moving themselves along with their gloved hands.

To keep from floating into space, crewmembers could anchor a network of safety ropes to the asteroid's surface, but "that has its own risks, because we don't understand how strong the surfaces of asteroids are and whether (they) would hold an astronaut in place," says Daniel Scheeres, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado.

The minimal gravity also means that any dust the astronauts stir up will hang in a suspended cloud for a long time. Because there's no weather on an asteroid, there's no erosion to smooth the dust particles.

"It's all going to stay pretty razor-sharp. ... It's not the most friendly stuff in the universe," Korsmeyer says. Keeping humans safe as they explore an asteroid "is going to be really tricky."

•Humanity doesn't hang in the balance.

In Armageddon, NASA must send a crew to an asteroid or life on Earth will be wiped out. "Even the bacteria," says the NASA chief, played by Billy Bob Thornton.

In the real world, that irrefutable motivation is absent. By 2025, Obama's target date, there will have been four presidential elections. Any could result in the mission's cancellation, just as Obama canceled Bush's moon plan. "The politics of this is far more challenging than the engineering," Colladay says.

The Obama administration has promised to increase NASA's budget by $6 billion over the next five years, but priorities may change. The Bush administration, for example, in 2007 cut long-term funding for its own moon program by $1.2 billion.

As the deficit looms larger, "especially as the November elections come along ... I would just not be surprised if enthusiasm for some big human spaceflight mission ends," says Marcia Smith, founder of spacepolicyonline.com.

As it is, the extra $6 billion Obama has promised NASA is inadequate for all the tasks the agency is supposed to tackle, Jones says. "The declaration that we're going to deep space is not matched by budget reality," he says.

Leshin, the NASA official, responds that the agency is embarking on a research program that will lead to new, less costly technologies. The agency will build new spacecraft over a period of many years, so the costs don't pile up all at once, she says.

"If we're making progress toward goals that are exciting and important to the American people, then it should be a sustainable program," Leshin says.

She is optimistic that relatively soon, NASA astronauts will speed toward a rendezvous with an asteroid, and that it will be better than in the movies.

"The first time we send humans beyond the cradle of the Earth-moon system, it's going to be extraordinary," Leshin says. "We will have gone further with humans in space than ever before. It will be an incredible first."

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