Reuters: Science News: SpaceX flight opens door for U.S. military payloads

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SpaceX flight opens door for U.S. military payloads Jun 5th 2012, 19:21 By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Tue Jun 5, 2012 3:21pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Space Exploration Technologies' unmanned Dragon capsule arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday following a test flight for NASA that could open the door to a long-desired and more elusive customer - the U.S. military. The cargo capsule blasted off May on 22 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida and three days later became the first privately owned spaceship to reach the International Space Station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations that flies some 240 miles above Earth. Dragon splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on May 31 and was returned by barge to the Port of Los Angeles before dawn on Tuesday. The successful test flight not only means Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, can start working off a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to fly cargo to the space station. It also clears a key hurdle for SpaceX to compete for Department of Defense business as well, which would mean launching military satellites. Dragon's launch was the third successive flight of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which debuted in June 2010. Flying three times successfully was among the criteria the company needed to meet to become eligible to compete for military business under a new program designed to draw competition into a field now monopolized by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Â""The new entrant criteria did say three launches are required (for Falcon 9) before certification can happen for national security payloads," said SpaceX Communications Director Kirstin Brost Grantham. There are several paths toward certification, and the requirements can vary, Air Force spokeswoman Tracy Bunko said. "Â"If the new entrant has a launch vehicle with a more robust, demonstrated successful flight history, then we may require less technical evaluation for certification. But, it also depends on the risk assessment of the mission," Bunko wrote in an email to Reuters. Near term, United Launch Alliance, or ULA, will remain the sole provider of heavy- and medium-lift commercial launch services to the U.S. military with its Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rockets. But the wall is cracking. The Air Force is expected to award a non-ULA launch services contract this year for the Deep Space Climate Observatory, a NASA Earth-monitoring satellite that is being repurposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) into a solar observatory. The Air Force issued a request for bids on May 11. A second satellite, the Air Force's Space Test Payload-2, also has been set aside for a new launch services provider. ELUSIVE MARKET In addition to 12 cargo-delivery flights for NASA, SpaceX has booked Falcon rocket flights for more than 28 other launches for a variety of companies, foreign governments and other customers. "The one market that we have not yet been successful with is launching Defense Department satellites, although we're hopeful that we'll win one or two demonstration launches this year," Musk said after Dragon's return from orbit. "Hopefully the successive flights of Falcon 9 in a row will give them the confidence they need to open up the defense contract for competition," he said. Robert Bigelow, the president of privately owned Bigelow Aerospace, said the Falcon 9 would create a paradigm shift within the global launch industry. "The Falcon 9 has clearly arrived and proven itself as a reliable and affordable launch system for NASA, the Air Force and commercial payloads," said Bigelow. His company plans to build, fly and operate commercial space stations and habitats in orbit, and has a marketing agreement with SpaceX for flight services. Last week, SpaceX added Intelsat as the first customer for its planned Falcon Heavy rocket, which is expected to have twice the lift capacity of ULA's Delta 4 Heavy, currently the biggest booster in the U.S. fleet. A Falcon Heavy mission costs between $83 million and $128 million, according to SpaceX's website, a fraction of a Delta 4 Heavy rocket launch. For now, ULA isn't worried. "In order for a fair competition, a new entrant would need to support the full set of mission and technical requirements. In addition, entrants also will be faced with stringent government oversight, accounting and reporting requirements - none of which is part of a commercial business plan," ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye wrote in an email to Reuters. "ULA also understands that the issue is not about competition, but how can our customers enable the reliable delivery of important space capabilities that protect our nation and promote science at the most cost-efficient method," she added. (Editing by Jane Sutton) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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Reuters: Science News: Tiny remnants of war found in Omaha Beach sand

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Tiny remnants of war found in Omaha Beach sand Jun 5th 2012, 16:53 1 of 8. A glass bead with divots and scratches is pictured in this handout scanning electron microscope image obtained by Reuters June 1, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Earle McBride/Dane Picard/Handout By Corrie MacLaggan AUSTIN, Texas | Tue Jun 5, 2012 12:53pm EDT AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - When Texas geologist Earle McBride visited Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, in 1988, four decades after D-Day, the visible remnants of the Allied Forces' invasion there had long ago vanished. But he and a colleague would later discover the history of the June 6, 1944, invasion of Normandy's beaches - which marked a turning point in World War Two - lingered in the sand in the form of tiny pieces of shrapnel only visible under a microscope. It wasn't a discovery that McBride and colleague Dane Picard of Utah set out to make during their tourist visit to Omaha Beach, where U.S. forces suffered their greatest casualties in the assault against heavily fortified German defenses. "We didn't think about, ‘Hey, there should be shrapnel here?'" said McBride, 80, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas who retired in 2005 but still goes to his office five hours a day to study rocks. But the geologists did what long ago became their habit when they visit a beach anywhere in the world: they put a bit of sand in a plastic bag and took it home. McBride didn't fully analyze the sample for more than two decades. Finally, in retirement, he made a slide of the sand by using blue-dyed epoxy to bind the grains together. On a recent day in his tiny office at the Austin university where he taught for 46 years, McBride showed a visitor what he found. Under a microscope, rounded grains - quartz, feldspar, clam and oyster shells - were visible, along with jagged-edged grains. "You see how angular that grain is?" he asked. "It's an anomaly - if it had the same origin and history, it should have been well-rounded, too." A different light source on the microscope revealed that the jagged-edged grains had a metallic sheen and a rust-colored coating, and when McBride held a magnet to some of the sand, the angular grains proved to be magnetic. McBride suspected the jagged grains were shrapnel, and he used a scanning electron microscope to verify his hunch. It showed the grains were iron with a bit of oxygen from rust. He also found the sand included small spherical iron and glass beads, which he and Picard believe were formed by munitions explosions in the air and sand. "It's a detective story," McBride said. "Sand has an exciting history." He said it's not surprising that shrapnel was left on the beach. Rather the surprise is that it remained there decades later, long after the wrecked ships, tanks and aircraft were gone. But the shrapnel won't be in the sand forever, he and Picard wrote in Earth Magazine last year. "The combination of chemical corrosion and abrasion will likely destroy the grains in a century or so, leaving only the memorials and people's memories to recall the extent of devastation suffered by those directly engaged in World War II," they wrote. The research by McBride and Picard - a professor emeritus at the University of Utah - was published in the September 2011 edition of The Sedimentary Record, a scholarly journal. "It was a great approach," said Xavier Janson, a research scientist at the University of Texas and an editor of the Record. "It was using a geological tool that you usually use to understand where sand grains come from, but instead, it was used to understand what happened on this beach." For McBride, the discovery is an example of why he still finds passion in his lifelong work studying sedimentary rocks, the ones most commonly found on the earth's surface. The latest project on his desk is a 450-million-year-old rock from Utah roughly the size of a softball; he's trying to reconstruct the history of how it formed and where its grains originated. The earth is old, McBride said, and "all I can do is work on one little chunk of the history of sandstones. As we say, so many rocks, so little time." (Reporting By Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Eric Walsh) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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Reuters: Science News: Skywatchers prepare for rare Venus fly-by

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Skywatchers prepare for rare Venus fly-by Jun 5th 2012, 15:22 1 of 2. The planet Venus is seen as a black dot as it transits across the sun over Hong Kong in this file photo taken June 8, 2004. Credit: Reuters/Bobby Yip/Files By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Tue Jun 5, 2012 11:22am EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - One of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday when the planet Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth, a transit that won't occur again until 2117. Transits of Venus happen in pairs eight years apart, with more than a century between cycles. During the pass, Venus appears as a small, dark round spot moving across the face of the sun, like a bug on a dinner plate. Â""The Venus transit really brings home to us, in a unique way, how ordinary our sun is. It's just another star," said scientist and author Mark Anderson. "Â"There's something very humbling out of this experience. We are another planet in orbit around another star in another galaxy in another corner of the universe. It really brings it home to us," Anderson said. Tuesday's transit, which bookends a 2004-2012 pair, begins at 6:09 p.m. EDT (2209 GMT) and lasts for six hours and 40 minutes. Times can vary by seven minutes depending on the location of the observer. Skywatchers on seven continents, including Antarctica, will be able to see all or part of the Venus transit, which should only be observed with telescopes outfitted with solar filters to protect the eyes. The Internet will be a hub of activity, with live video and pictures from an armada of space- and ground-based observatories. Even astronauts aboard the International Space Station are joining in the event. "Â"I've been planning this for a while," space station flight engineer Don Pettit said in a NASA interview. "Â"I knew the transit of Venus would occur during my rotation, so I brought a solar filter with me." It's not all about pretty pictures. Several science experiments are planned, including studies that should help in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth. MEASURING VENUS' ATMOSPHERE Telescopes, such as NASA's Kepler space telescope, are being used to find so-called extra solar planets that pass in front of their parent stars, much like Venus will pass by the sun. During the transit, astronomers will be able to measure Venus' thick atmosphere and use the data to develop techniques for measuring atmospheres around other planets. Studies of Venus' atmosphere also could shed light on why Earth and Venus, which are almost exactly the same size and orbit approximately the same distance from the sun, ended up so different. Venus has a chokingly dense atmosphere 100 times thicker than Earth's that is mostly carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats up Venus' surface to a lead-melting 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius). The weather is brutal, with towering clouds of sulfuric acid that jet around the planet at 220 mph, regularly dousing the planet with acid rain. Â""A human being transported to this hellish environment would be crushed, suffocate, desiccate, and possibly ignite," wrote Tony Phillips, with Science@NASA. Scientists are interested in learning more about Venus' climate in hopes of understanding changes in Earth's atmosphere. During previous transits of Venus, scientists were able to figure out the size of the solar system and the distance between the sun and the planets. Tuesday's transit is only the eighth since the invention of the telescope, and it will be the last one until December 10-11, 2117. It also is the first to take place with a spacecraft at Venus. Observations from Europe's Venus Express probe will be compared with those made by several ground and space-based telescopes including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the joint U.S.-European Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and Japan's Hinode spacecraft. Armchair astronomers have rich choice of websites to monitor. NASA's compilation will be here Slooh Space Camera will broadcast 10 real-time feeds of the transit from solar telescopes located in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Hawaii, Norway, Arizona, and New Mexico. The webcast at events.slooh.com/ begins at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). And, of course, there's an app for that. Owners of mobile devices using Apple and Android operating systems can download a free app to learn about the transit, interact with skywatchers and track the transit as it occurs around the world. The app is available at tov2012.esri.com/ and several websites, including (transitofvenus.nl/wp/) and www.eclipse-maps.com. (Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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Reuters: Science News: Big U.S. firms team up on plant plastics

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Big U.S. firms team up on plant plastics Jun 5th 2012, 15:05 Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Coke, McDonald's slam New York City bid to ban big soda cups Thu, May 31 2012 Companies fire back at proposed NYC big soda ban Thu, May 31 2012 Nike looking to sell Cole Haan and Umbro brands Thu, May 31 2012 U.S. defense cuts hit home at Ohio tank plant Thu, May 24 2012 Appeals court revives POM lawsuit versus Coca-Cola Thu, May 17 2012 Related Topics Science » Environment » A labourer collects plastic bottles at a recycling centre in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province November 6, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Stringer Tue Jun 5, 2012 11:05am EDT (Reuters) - Five of the biggest names in American business have formed a group to accelerate the development and use of plant-based plastic. Coca-Cola Co, Ford Motor Co, H.J. Heinz Co, Nike Inc and Procter & Gamble Co said on Tuesday they are committed to advancing research and development to support a commercially viable, sustainably sourced plastic made entirely from plant materials, while reducing the use of fossil fuels. The collaboration builds on Coke's "plant bottle" packaging technology, which is partially made from material derived from sugar cane. Heinz has already licensed the technology from Coke for some Heinz ketchup bottles. Coke, the world's biggest soft drink maker, gets sugar cane-based ethanol from plantations in Brazil that it says are far from the Amazon rain forests. It is also working to develop a way to capture sugar from plant waste. All the companies in the working group use the plastic PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, in products ranging from plastic bottles, clothing and shoes to automotive fabric and carpet. (Reporting By Martinne Geller in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and John Wallace) Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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Reuters: Science News: Skywatchers prepare for rare Venus fly-by

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Skywatchers prepare for rare Venus fly-by Jun 4th 2012, 21:28 By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Mon Jun 4, 2012 5:28pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - One of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday when the planet Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth, a transit that won't occur again until 2117. Transits of Venus happen in pairs eight years apart, with more than a century between cycles. During the pass, Venus appears as a small, dark round spot moving across the face of the sun, like a bug on a dinner plate. Â""The Venus transit really brings home to us, in a unique way, how ordinary our sun is. It's just another star," said scientist and author Mark Anderson. "Â"There's something very humbling out of this experience. We are another planet in orbit around another star in another galaxy in another corner of the universe. It really brings it home to us," Anderson said. Tuesday's transit, which bookends a 2004-2012 pair, begins at 6:09 p.m. EDT (2209 GMT) and lasts for six hours and 40 minutes. Times can vary by seven minutes depending on the location of the observer. Skywatchers on seven continents, including Antarctica, will be able to see all or part of the Venus transit, which should only be observed with telescopes outfitted with solar filters to protect the eyes. The Internet will be a hub of activity, with live video and pictures from an armada of space- and ground-based observatories. Even astronauts aboard the International Space Station are joining in the event. "Â"I've been planning this for a while," space station flight engineer Don Pettit said in a NASA interview. "Â"I knew the transit of Venus would occur during my rotation, so I brought a solar filter with me." It's not all about pretty pictures. Several science experiments are planned, including studies that should help in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth. MEASURING VENUS' ATMOSPHERE Telescopes, such as NASA's Kepler space telescope, are being used to find so-called extra solar planets that pass in front of their parent stars, much like Venus will pass by the sun. During the transit, astronomers will be able to measure Venus' thick atmosphere and use the data to develop techniques for measuring atmospheres around other planets. Studies of Venus' atmosphere also could shed light on why Earth and Venus, which are almost exactly the same size and orbit approximately the same distance from the sun, ended up so different. Venus has a chokingly dense atmosphere 100 times thicker than Earth's that is mostly carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats up Venus' surface to a lead-melting 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius). The weather is brutal, with towering clouds of sulfuric acid that jet around the planet at 220 mph, regularly dousing the planet with acid rain. Â""A human being transported to this hellish environment would be crushed, suffocate, desiccate, and possibly ignite," wrote Tony Phillips, with Science@NASA. Scientists are interested in learning more about Venus' climate in hopes of understanding changes in Earth's atmosphere. During previous transits of Venus, scientists were able to figure out the size of the solar system and the distance between the sun and the planets. Tuesday's transit is only the eighth since the invention of the telescope, and it will be the last one until December 10-11, 2117. It also is the first to take place with a spacecraft at Venus. Observations from Europe's Venus Express probe will be compared with those made by several ground and space-based telescopes including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the joint U.S.-European Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and Japan's Hinode spacecraft. Armchair astronomers have rich choice of websites to monitor. NASA's compilation will be here Slooh Space Camera will broadcast 10 real-time feeds of the transit from solar telescopes located in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Hawaii, Norway, Arizona, and New Mexico. The webcast at events.slooh.com/ begins at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). And, of course, there's an app for that. Owners of mobile devices using Apple and Android operating systems can download a free app to learn about the transit, interact with skywatchers and track the transit as it occurs around the world. The app is available at tov2012.esri.com/ and several websites, including (transitofvenus.nl/wp/) and www.eclipse-maps.com. (Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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Reuters: Science News: Stanford genome pioneer wins Lemelson-MIT prize

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Stanford genome pioneer wins Lemelson-MIT prize Jun 4th 2012, 00:01 By Toni Clarke BOSTON | Sun Jun 3, 2012 8:01pm EDT BOSTON (Reuters) - Stephen Quake, a prolific inventor whose creative application of physics to biology has lead to multiple developments in drug discovery and genome analysis, has won the prestigious $500,000 Lemelson-MIT prize for outstanding innovators. Quake, a professor of bioengineering and applied physics at Stanford University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has applied the technological principles of the integrated circuit - a chip made of semiconductor material found in almost every modern electrical device - to biology. "I get interested in a scientific problem and often find a way to measure the thing I'm interested in," Quake said in an interview. "Often I find the measurement technique has different applications." Quake developed a chip with miniature pumps and valves that incorporates complex fluid-handling steps to speed genetic research. He co-founded Fluidigm Corp in 1999 to commercialize the technology. The company generated sales of $10.8 million in the first quarter of 2012. In 2009, Quake made headlines when he sequenced his own genome for under $50,000 using a single machine, helping usher in an era of personalized medicine in which an individual's genetic information can guide diagnosis and treatment. The information from his own genome revealed Quake had a genetic mutation that places him at increased risk of cardiomyopathy, a disease that weakens and enlarges the heart muscles. As a result, Quake is monitored by a cardiologist. Earlier this year, Ion Torrent, a division of Life Technologies Corp, said it had begun taking orders for a tabletop machine that is able to sequence an individual's genome for less than $1,000, placing such a test within reach of the average patient. Quake's innovations have been used to help determine the structure of proteins, including those involved in the Ebola virus and the H5N1 influenza virus, and are used by drug companies and research organizations to study, among other things, potential drug treatments. He also developed a non-invasive prenatal diagnostic test for Down Syndrome and co-founded a company, Verinata Health Inc, to develop non-invasive tests to detect fetal chromosomal abnormalities in early pregnancy. Earlier this year the company launched its first product. Quake is currently focused on better understanding the human immune system. His interest was sparked in part when one of his two children developed food allergies. "As we started to see doctors we realized a lot is not known about how allergies work and how the immune system gets off track," he said. Quake received bachelors and masters degrees in mathematics at Stanford University and a doctorate in physics at Oxford University. He said he will probably put the Lemelson-MIT proceeds "into my kids' college fund." (Reporting By Toni Clarke; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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Reuters: Science News: Intel inspired by aerospace to make sturdier laptops

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Intel inspired by aerospace to make sturdier laptops Jun 1st 2012, 20:53 A laptop displays the Intel logo at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada January 7, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Steve Marcus By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO | Fri Jun 1, 2012 4:53pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Engineers at Intel Corp are applying lessons from aircraft design to create sturdier laptops in a bid to reduce the prices of the new ultra-thin computers the top chipmaker is promoting heavily. Intel is counting on the super-thin laptops, a category it has dubbed ultrabooks, to add some pizzazz to a PC market languishing due to the growing popularity of Apple Inc's iPad. Combining the best of laptops and tablets, the ultrabooks will have large, touch screens, "instant on" responsiveness and razor-thin dimensions - all expensive features that have left some on Wall Street wondering if they might be too expensive for average consumers. Engineers at Intel's Dupont, Washington R&D center, including former Boeing Co employees, have come up with a design method to make plastic laptop cases as strong as more expensive metal ones. That may cut the cost of future ultrabooks by between $25 and $75, said Ben Broili, head of the team. Their work is an example of the steps Intel is taking to find ways to make future ultrabooks more affordable - without cutting the prices of its processors. At a meeting with analysts last month, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said ultrabooks would be available for as little as $699, but many are expected to be priced nearer to $1,000. Borrowing from the aerospace industry, the engineers have found that hard drives, motherboards and other components that make up the guts of a PC can be laid out in ways that make the laptops structure much stronger. "We didn't develop a new material. We are able to use an existing plastic with an existing manufacturing technology," he told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It just requires some more upfront thought initially about how you lay your system out and how you can bring these things together and tie them in." Different components in the laptop can be leveraged to support its chassis, or even dissipate heat from the processor, he said. "There is no one size fits all," Broili added. "We're trying to enable the entire industry. You can make trades, move stuff around; and if you don't want your hard drive here, then move it. You have a menu you can pick from and see what you win or lose from a cost and quality standpoint." LESS FLEX Laptops with metal cases tend to be sturdier than laptops with plastic cases, but they cost more. To get an idea of the structural quality of any laptop, Broili recommends lifting it up by a front corner while it is open and watching how much it flexes. Intel has already held a seminar in Taiwan to demonstrate its new design technique to PC design engineers and it is promoting it with specific manufacturers. At the Computex technology show in Taipei, Taiwan, next week, PC manufactures are set to unveil dozens of ultrabooks using Intel's newest Ivy Bridge processors. They will also demonstrate future models with touch screens, based on Microsoft Corps's Windows 8 platform, which is expected out later this year. Broili said Intel engineers are working on other ways to improve ultrabooks, including tweaks to motherboards, touch screens and Wifi. Separately, Intel launched a $300 million fund last year to invest in small companies focused on technologies complementing ultrabooks, such as improved battery life. A few ultrabook models launched this year have been reviewed as nice but pricey, leaving some analysts skeptical the category will attract mainstream shoppers. Otellini has said Intel is on track to reach its goal that ultrabooks account for 40 percent of all consumer notebooks sold by the end of the year. (Editing by Andre Grenon) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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