What next for military space?

The top-level Allard Commission has come out for a thorough restructuring of American military space efforts. They argue there is currently no central authority or responsibility and a dismal acquisition system, among other problems. They propose a radical restructuring including abolishing the National Reconnaissance Office.

COMMENT: There's not much to disagree with here. "Black world" and "white world" space were properly given separate agencies over 45 years ago, but the separation makes little sense today. Here's hoping this report gets written into policy... though the record of intelligent recommendations being adopted is not very good, either.

And yet another headache - Russian transportation

With a five-year gap between the Shuttle and the CEV, NASA was planning to rely on Russian transportation to the ISS. Russia's invasion of Georgia has added a new obstacle to that.

Like NASA needed another headache ... USA v ATK

United Space Alliance (USA), NASA's prime Space Shuttle contractor, has sued Alliant Techsystems and ATK Launch Systems, Inc., seeking damages for fraud and breach of contract, and seeking an injunction against further piracy of USA employees with skills needed to flying out the Space Shuttle manifest. USA says:

"The lawsuit is in response to ATK's failure to negotiate a long-term contract in good faith during the past two years. More importantly, ATK concurrently undertook an aggressive campaign to hire critically skilled USA employees, who have been performing specialized work in support of both the Ares and Space Shuttle programs in order to solely perform work on Ares."

COMMENT: Wow

Press conference: no sasquatch and no point

Tom Biscardi, Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer today held the most pointless press conference in history. They had promised evidence of sasquatch, a specimen of which which they claimed to have stuffed in a freezer. They provided... nothing.
DNA they had submitted to a biologist for testing came back as (really a mixture of human and opossum segments. Biscardi said scientists would soon be allowed to examine the body, which prompted skeptics to make the obvious point that you should have the examination and then the press conference. And there is no excuse for providing poor images that look remarkably like a commercially available sasquatch costume if you do, in fact, have a sasquatch handy and can take the time to photograph it thoroughly.

So far, this looks like one of the boldest and dumbest in a long series of sasquatch hoaxes. If the animal is really out there, I hope he has the intellect to tune in and understand what's going on. He may kill himself laughing and leave a real corpse to discover.

NASA News conference: News is not good

In 2005, NASA announced the goal of having the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) flying in 2011. Three years into the Constellation program, that goal has now officially slipped four years. It sounds like one of Zeno's paradoxes: for every year of the program, you slip 1.33 years, so you never fly.

COMMENT: OK, some of the problem is budget (with blame to share among the President and Congress), and some is the nature of all large high-tech programs to develop unforeseen difficulties and require changes as the managers and engineers accumulate data. But you can't absolve NASA management on this. They knew roughly what was going to happen with the budget, and it was obvious some time ago that premature commitment to a launch vehicle solution was not the best path they could have chosen. Development of the Orion seems to be going pretty well in most areas (with the exception of the crater made by the with the Parachute Test Vehicle) , but integrating it with a launch vehicle that seems frighteningly marginal is not. The Ares-1 looks more and more like Vanguard every day: a vehicle which was sold as a simple upgrade of existing stages when the engineers suspected (and soon knew for sure) it was going to be a completely new rocket, with chronic technical problems and budget overruns. They eventually made Vanguard work, but there's a lot more riding on the Ares - literally.

I need hardly mention, but will anyway, that, as with all my posts, the comments in this one are strictly my personal opinions.

What's up at NASA? Not Constellation

I can't resist linking to this arch Klyde Morris cartoon strip summarizing NASA's current management dilemma.

Microspace News: Surrey opens U.S. branch

From a Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) press release:


"Surrey Satellite Technology US opens for business
5/8/2008
Leading small satellite manufacturer, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), has set up a new subsidiary in the United States to take advantage of the growing international demand for economical, responsive and highly capable spacecraft for a broad range of applications.

The new company, Surrey Satellite Technology US LLC (SST-US), has opened an office in Colorado and will eventually have centres in California and Washington DC enabling SSTL to work much closer and more efficiently with its customers.

SSTL’s Commercial Director, Dr John Paffett, has been appointed CEO of the new company and can see great potential: “The US is the world’s largest satellite market and presents a great opportunity for us. Surrey Satellite Technology strives to improve and increase the application and utility of small satellites that address the need for operationally responsive space. With budgets coming under increasing pressure, we’ve now reached the point where the price performance of some of these systems is opening up space to a whole new range of customers, applications and services.”

COMMENT: Welcome Aboard!

We have bigfoot ... maybe

Cryptozoology websites and newsgroups have been crushed under the weight of response and comment to this story about people who claim to have a dead bigfoot. From what I've seen so far in images released to the world, I'm not very impressed. I'll be surprised - very suprised - if these folks deliver what they have promised to reveal this coming Friday.

Happy 100,000th orbit, Hubble

On its 100,000th orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Star Cluster NGC 2074 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Words cannot do justice to the revealed magnificence of theu niverse.

The fungus is glowing amongus

Biologist Dennis Desjardin describes in the linked article a very successful foray into southern Brazil in search of a rare phenomenon - mushrooms that give off bioluminescent glows. What his team found is that such mushrooms were not quite so rare as thought. A single evening's work uncovered eight new species, brining to about 65 the number of species (out some some 9,000 known mushrooms) which put out a yellow-green light for reasons not yet fully understood.

Big fuss over smallest snake

As I blogged earlier (see below), biologist S. Blair Hedges recently described the world's smallest known snake from the island of Barbados. He named the 10-cm snake Leptotyphlops carlae. The citizens of Barbados, though, are up in arms over the claim of someone to have "discovered" something islanders have known about for a long time. Hedges notes that it's common for "discovered" species to be locally known, and he is claiming only to be the first to assign the animal a scientific name and write a formal description.

COMMENT: This is an interesting issue, and it's not the first time it's come up. There's a difference, though, between "discovered" in the sense of "first to see the thing" and "discovered" in the scientific sense. I always prefer the term "described" for the latter, and Hedges has the right of the argument here.

Things found lying around dead

I always hesitate before posting about any unidentified carcass (indeed, I may never have done it) because if you wait awhile, such things usually become identified. So it is with the "Montauk Monster." This thing, despite being pretty small (certainly not over a couple of feet long, excluding tail) allegedly washed up on a beach and non-allegedly started a media sensation. Now we have an almost certain ID (a bloated, dead raccoon) but the media has not died down. There are at least three competing claims about where the thing came from and who has it, and someone rushed out a fairly accurate replica and put it on eBay.

Will the same thing happen for the "beast-walrus," or qaqrat, washed up on Alaska's Nunivak Island?
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/qaqrat/

It may. Or the thing may slip quietly out of the news.

I do believe there are some large animals in the oceans yet to be identified, and they may well be discovered via a carcass on the beach (as several species of cetacean have). But the record advises caution. There's almost no point in writing news article until and unless an expert takes a look at the item in question and says "unidentified."

SpaceX's Elon Musk speaks on the Falcon 1 problwm

To abbreviate the message from SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk reports:

"The problem arose due to the longer thrust decay transient of our new Merlin 1C regeneratively cooled engine, as compared to the prior flight that used our old Merlin 1A ablatively cooled engine. Unlike the ablative engine, the regen engine had unburned fuel in the cooling channels and manifold that combined with a small amount of residual oxygen to produce a small thrust that was just enough to overcome the stage separation pusher impulse... As it turned out, a very small increase in the time between commanding main engine shutdown and stage separation would have been enough to save the mission...It looks like we may have flight four on the launch pad as soon as next month."

COMMENT: As others have pointed out, SpaceX needed only days to identify a cause and post the cause and intended fix for the whole world to read. NASA should learn something here. Good luck next time to Elon and company.

Ares/Orion troubles continue

The link above goes to a discussion on a NASAWatch board, which also has a link to an Orlando Sentinel story about continued problems in coming up with an Ares I design that is workable and safe. NASAWatch's Keith Cowing reports the Astronaut Office practically vomited on the latest proposal to control oscillations in "The Stick" design.

COMMENT: As I always say on this topic:
1. I'm not an engineer.
2. I am speaking purely my own opinion.
3. I never liked this design - it seemed marginal to begin with, and the more they have to keep tweaking it, the further away they get from the original claim this solution to launching the Orion was "safe, simple, soon." Yes, we have spent a lot of money and done a lot of work on the Ares I, but if I was Mike Griffin, I would still lean toward scrapping it and working instead to man-rate one of the existing EELVs.

If you go to NASAWatch, they also have posts on the first failure of the Orion Parachute Test Vehicle. It's not the failure that bothers me - it's a test vehicle, and that's why you do tests. It's that the failure was identified thus in a NASA memo: "This situation occurred because of hard buffeting produced by the wake formed by the PTV and the stabilization parachutes." In other words, it's not a one-time component failure. It's another thing needing redesign in a program where everything seems to need redesign.

The US 193 satellite intercept

James Oberg has published the most thorough analysis yet of this incident. His conclusion is that the reasons given by the U.S. government were valid. The satellite's hydrazine tank would not have disintegrated on a normal reentry. He also describes the technical side and explains how this was even more difficult than it looked. Congratulations on a first-rate article, Jim.

Opportunity to support a lunar mission

This message was sent to my fellow science blogger Darren Naish. I reproduce it in full here. I encourage this kind of endeavor and hope someone has the money and inclination to help these fellows out.

From: Will Baird
Date: 2008/8/6
Subject: *grovel*


Darren,

I am writing with a small plea. I am involved with the Lunar Lander
Challenge[1] and if we successfully complete that, the Google Lunar X
Prize[2]. My team[3,4,5] has hardware on order;however, we have just been hit by
a a sudden rule change by the FAA that will increase our testing
costs a lot.

I am not asking you for a donation. I know about families and money
woes - even with a steady paycheck its not easy! - However if you
would be willing to put up a post suggesting readers contribute, I'd deeply
appreciate it. I've been pounding pavement for well over six months
for this and now IDK if I can raise the dinero in any other way than a paypal drive
in time. If I had another year, yes, but...

Thanx for considering it, Darren.

Will


1. http://space.xprize.org/ng-lunar-lander-challenge
2. http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/
3. http://www.teamphoenicia.org/
4. http://space.xprize.org/ng-lunar-lander-challenge/2008/teams/phoenicia
5. http://teamphoenicia.blogspot.com/

Gorilla population more than double estimates

I didn't blog on this story when it came out because I had trouble believing it wasn't a misprint, with a zero or two added somewhere. But, no, it's accurate, according to the WIldlife Conservation Society. The total western lowland gorilla population (one of four usually-recognized subspecies of the lowland gorilla (technically, its name is Gorilla gorilla gorilla)) had been estimated at under 100,000 and falling. A new census, though, puts the number in the northern Congo region alone at 125,000.

COMMENT: There is some uncertainly about the estimate (based on counting sleeping nests, since individual gorillas are hard to keep track of), but it's clear the animal is doing much better than conservationists feared. A previously unknown population of about 6,000 is part of the estimate. Cryptozoologists have been quick to point out the implications here. If an entire population, around 6,000 animals which may individually weigh upwards of 200kg, has been missed all these years, what else have we missed, in Africa and elsewhere?

MicroSpaceNews: SpaceDev sees positive in recent launch loss

While the microspace community was uttering a collective "Aw. _&%_(#!!!" at the failure of SpaceX's Falcon 1 booster, SpaceDev, DoD's partner in the Jumpstart Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) aspect of this mission, was quick to point out what went right. SpaceDev notes its Trailblazer satellite for the mission was delivered on relatively short notice and met all DoD criteria except of course for a functional demonstration on-orbit. SpaceDev announced it remained committed to the SpaceX (there's no corporate connection, despite the similar names) Falcon 1 launch vehicle program.

MicrospaceNews: New Indian Microsat Effort

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), will help the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur develop a new microspacecraft focused on agricultural and disaster monitoring. Based on Indian technology, the microsat will take about 18 months to develop.
COMMENT: Note there is no description of this as a research or experimental satellite. It's simply being developed to do a job - another sign of the maturity of microspacecraft.

Top 10 "Mad Scientists"

LiveScience.com offers, as today's diversion, a list of "mad scientists" - actually scientists with eccentricities or multiple interests, neither of which is a bad thing. Einstein gets the top spot because, among other reasons, no ever had better mad-scientists hair.

Microspace News.... Another Falcon falls short

I would have bet money SpaceX's Falcon 1 would make orbit on Flight 3. Alas, I would have lost.
While the main engine and first stage worked fine, there was a problem with separation. The DoD and NASA satellites aboard were lost, always a crushing blow to satellite engineers who have to wait months to years for launch opportunities.

CEO Elon Musk was resolute. His statement after the mishap reads,

"Plan Going Forward

It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight [Falcon 1, Flight 3]. On the plus side, the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened.
The most important message I’d like to send right now is that SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward. We have flight four of Falcon 1 almost ready for flight and flight five right behind that. I have also given the go ahead to begin fabrication of flight six. Falcon 9 development will also continue unabated, taking into account the lessons learned with Falcon 1. We have made great progress this past week with the successful nine engine firing.
As a precautionary measure to guard against the possibility of flight 3 not reaching orbit, SpaceX recently accepted a significant investment. Combined with our existing cash reserves, that ensures we will have more than sufficient funding on hand to continue launching Falcon 1 and develop Falcon 9 and Dragon. There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.
Thanks for your hard work and now on to flight four.

--Elon-- "

COMMENT: I'm a bit curious about the "significant investment."

Three failures is not necessarily a sign the design is bad, only that this whole space launch thing is complicated. By historical standards, it's not the best or worst of performances. The Saturn V worked on every flight, but Wernher von Braun's simpler Redstone went into its tests as a ballistic missile with a program of 62 launches. (It was cut to 35 when it was clear the major bugs were worked out.) I feel very bad for the SpaceX folks and even worse for the satellite developers who waited months or years for a launch, but I don't think SpaceX is out of the launch business.

ADDED COMMENT: I note the press releases before this flight, as with the second Falcon attempt, described numerous upgrades and improvements over the previously launched vehicle. In other words, SpaceX has really flown three different configurations, which raises the possibility that new failure modes have been introduced. Folks, I'm not an engineer, but here's my unsolicited advice: Freeze the configuration. Find out what went wrong on Flight 3 and fix that - ONLY THAT - and get a successful flight accomplished before you turn to upgrades. Sure, a test flight is just that, and is often intended to try out something new, but prospective customers have to be getting a little nervous at this point. Sometimes, no matter how good your engineers are, you have to rein them in a bit and say "Just make sure the next one orbits." Just one guy's opinion....

World's Smallest Snake Discovered

A lot of people would say that, if we have to find new snakes, it is best those snakes are small. Well, Leptotyphlops carlae, a new snake from Barbados, is as small as they come. It's the size of a 10-cm-long spaghetti noodle. The snake is so small that, like its slightly larder cousins in the group called the threadsnakes, it can produce only one egg at a time. If it had two, the hatchlings would be too tiny to survive. Biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State, who described the animal along with a companion species nearly as long from the island of St. Lucia, thinks this may be as small as snakes get. "Snakes may be prevented by natural selection from becoming too small because, below a certain size, there may be nothing for their young to eat."

Microspace News: NASA"s microsats ready to go

NASA's press release on an exciting mission ready for launch:


RELEASE: 08-70AR

NASA NANOSATELLITES CATCH RIDE ON ROCKET, DEMONSTRATE TECHNOLOGY

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - NASA will fly two nanosatellites as secondary payloads aboard the SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket planned for launch in August or September.

Spaceflight engineers and project managers at NASA's Ames Research Center, and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., teamed together to arrange a fast-paced, low-cost mission. The mission provides an opportunity to demonstrate NASA-developed spaceflight technologies and the Ames-developed modular approach to constructing the PharmaSat Risk Evaluation (or PRESat) and NanoSail-D satellites. This same approach was used successfully on a previous mission, GeneSat, and will be used for the upcoming PharmaSat mission, scheduled to launch later this year.
"This mission provides NASA with a unique opportunity to evaluate how our nanosatellite spacecraft and its payload perform, while demonstrating our ability to conduct fast turn-around, low-cost spaceflight projects," said John Hines, chief technologist at Ames' Small Spacecraft Division and PRESat-NanoSail-D technical director. "This collaborative mission has enabled NASA to demonstrate and support cutting-edge technologies."

After successfully entering a low Earth orbit, PRESat will create a stable, space science laboratory using innovative environment control and biological detection techniques. NanoSail-D will deploy an ultra-thin, highly reflective solar sail for the first time in history, and validate cutting-edge, propellant-less space propulsion technologies.

"We have an experimental payload loaded into an experimental satellite, onboard a privately developed vehicle," said Edward "Sandy" Montgomery, NanoSail-D payload manager at NASA's Marshall. "We're thrilled with this opportunity to combine our solar sail experience and technology with a new way of doing business."

The PRESat micro-laboratory is a controlled environment with sensors and optical systems that can detect the growth, density and health of yeast cells. PRESat will also monitor the levels of pressure, temperature, and acceleration. This data will be relayed in real-time to mission managers and engineers for further analysis.

Packed inside the NanoSail-D satellite is a 100 square foot sail, made of ultra-thin, light gossamer fabric, coated with a layer of aluminum to enhance its thrust-producing properties. The reflective sails are designed to intercept the constantly streaming solar energy and change the orbit of the spacecraft. If the deployment is successful, the mission team will be able to pick up slight changes in NanoSail's orbit due to solar pressure and aerodynamic drag a few days into the mission.
Marshall Space Flight Center provided materials for the NanoSail-D spacecraft and the solar sail payload, including harvesting the sail material from an earlier Marshall solar sail propulsion mission tested at NASA's Glenn Plum Brook Station in 2005. The team also includes academic and industry partners who provided economical commercial-off-the-shelf components that were quickly configured and integrated to create the satellite.

The Falcon 1 rocket is on the pad at the Marshall Islands launch site, where SpaceX is conducting final checkouts. SpaceX has announced that the rocket could launch at any time during two launch windows: July 31 to Aug. 6 and late August to early September. SpaceX will notify news media 36 hours in advance of a launch.

After both satellites are ejected from the Falcon 1 rocket into orbit, they will activate and begin transmitting radio signals to two ground control stations operated by students from Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, Calif. One station is located at the Universidad Centroamericana in San Salvador, El Salvador. The other is an innovative, mobile station, positioned near the launch site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Students will monitor the spacecraft, provide mission data to NASA engineers and coordinate with amateur radio operators around the world to tune in to the satellites' broadcasts.

For the most current NanoSail-D and PRESat launch and spacecraft information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats

For more information about NASA programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

To view the launch via webcast, please visit:

http://www.spacex.com

- end -

Breakthrough on Mars

For the first time, a Mars probe has finally, directly, definitely confirmed the existence of water ice in the Martian permafrost. The AP reports the Mars Phoenix Lander's scientific team broke out champagne at the news, which comes after several glitches had slowed the analysis.

MIT may point way to solar future

Electrolysis - splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen by the use of an electric current - is an old technology. What's being reported by an MIT chemist, though, is a long-sought advance - a cheap catalyst that will enable the reaction to occur at room temperature and pressure. Without the need of current processes to heat the water under pressure, this could make it much more economical to "split" water using solar power and store the resulting fuel for use when the sun isn't shining. The technology has a long way to go to demonstrate large-scale practicality and economic viability, but it reminds us once again to never underestimate human ingenuity.

Happy 50th, NASA!

On July 29, 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the legislation creating NASA. Since then, the agency has seen triumph and heartbreak, accomplishment and tragedy. It has extend the human view of the universe in ways once thought impossible and put human footprints on the Moon.
Here's wishing the men and women of NASA another 50 years of great explorations.

Footnote: NASA has no budget for FY2009 and not much chance of getting one. It will likely have to limp on with one of those flat-funding monstrosities Congress calls a Continuing Resolution. And legislation reauthorizing the agency and renewing its charter for the next half-century is crawling through Congress. And yet, NASA carries on, thanks to the dedication of its people. We owe them better.

Newest monkey now most endangered

The large monkey known in Tanzania as the kipunji was discovered by science only three years ago. Now the Wildlife Conservation Society has determined there are not many more than 1,000 of the creatures, and their habitat is shrinking. The species lives in a range of less than 18 square kilometers, under siege from illegal logging and poaching. According to Dr. Tim Davenport, Tanzania Country Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society, "The kipunji is hanging on by the thinnest of threads. "We must do all we can to safeguard this extremely rare and little understood species while there is still time." The WCS is increasing its efforts to protect the animals' habitat.

A Whole Lotta Lemur

We think of lemurs as cute little primates, maybe the size of a cat at most. Not so Hadropithecus stenognathus, an extinct 50-kg giant. This article documents how scientists at Penn State used computerized tomography to get a "virtually complete" skull by gluing together bone fragments found in 2003 with, incredibly, the partial skull of the same individual found in 1899. As one put it, "This is very much a modern research story. We did all the work with the help of computers and neither all of the scientists nor all of the specimens were ever in the same room."

Unveiling the WhiteKnightTwo

The WhiteKnightTwo, mothership for the space tourist carrier SpaceShipTwo, was unveiled by designer Burt Rutan and backer Richard Branson. The futuristic four-engine, twin-fuselage jet will start flight tests later this year. SOme 250 people have put down deposits on a $200,000 suborbital ride to space.
Notable on the linked page is a link to a blog post labeled "Richard Branson Unveils Cool New Way to Die."

Farewell to the lion?

Bruce Hughes of the Colorado Springs Gazette wrote this wrapup on the Colorado Springs lion case. The animal has essentially disappeared in a cloud of puzzlement. I appreciate his quoting me, though I don't think I said exactly the last half of the final sentence. Or I'm sure I meant something that sounded rational and profound at the time. Anyway, until and unless there are more sightings or other evidence (like someone admitting having lost track of a big chow dog in the area, or a better set of lion pawprints than what DOW now says they had), the case is not moving toward any certain solution.

Unknown creature tracked underwater

I always like coming across the little nuggets that remind us we don't know everything about the natural world. Dr. Bruce Robison of the famed Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute once told an interviewer he thought we had so far missed at least a third of the large animals in the oceans (though he didn't define "large.")
In the fascinating new book Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling (Da Capo Press, 2008) Andrew Darby chronicles the long and often bloody interactions between humans and whales. He also includes this item in his discussion of the now-closed whaling center on King George Sound in Albany, Western Australia. In the 1970s, when whalers like Captain George Cruikshank followed sperm whales with sonar, they often watched something they coulnd't identify in the 4000-meter-deep Albany Canyon.

"'The mystery bugger,' they called it...They would pick it up always at the same spot, and follow it by sonar as it cruised through the canyon, leaving a larger imprint on the screen than a whale. The creature would almost break the surface and then disappear. It was no air breather. It might have been a giant squid, or a giant shark. They never found out." (p.96)

MicrospaceNews: The student satellite revolution

Student satellites date back to INJUN-1, developed in the early 60s by students under the supervision of Dr. James Van Allen. As this excellent post by science journalist David Chandler notes, though, there are more student programs and related investigations today than ever before. From the now-ubiquitous Cubesats to NASA Ames' American Student Moon Orbiter, students have never had more opportunities for hands-on design, building, and operation of spacecraft.

MicrospaceNews: THEMIS explains the aurora

NASA"s fleet of five THEMIS microspacecraft, by providing simultaneous observations of the Earth's magnetic field from multiple points, have explained what starts the Northern and Southern lights dancing. The triggers are magnetic "substorms" about a third of the way from the Earth to the Moon. In this region, the magnetic field lines are stretched until they "snap back" into a new shape in a process called magnetic reconnection. This process releases the energy from the solar wind captured and stored by the magnetic field lines and directs it back toward the planet, creating the curtains of energetic particles which become visible in the polar regions.

COMMENT: THEMIS is a great demonstration of one of the space science benefits of microspacecraft: the ability to deploy an affordable constellation of instruments for multi-point observations.

Manta Rays - a new species (or two)?

Dr. Andrea Marshall has been studying manta rays for five years. Mantas fascinate people because of their strangeness and their sheer size (specimens over 7m across and weighing over two metric tons are on record).
Mantas have traditionally been assigned to one species (Manta birostris), although there are questions about whether the distinctly marked variant called "Beebe's manta" should qualify as a species in its own right, and at least two other species (Manta ehrenbergii, Manta raya) have been proposed at various times. Now Dr. Marshall is convinced she has ended this confusion by determining there are at least two species, and there may be three.

As a release from her supporting organization, "Save Our Seas," puts it:

"The two species have mainly overlapping distributions, but their lifestyles differ greatly; one is migratory and the other is resident to particular areas along the coast. Other differences between the two species lie in their colour, skin texture, reproductive biology, and the presence of a non-functioning type of sting on the tail of one of the species."

The commonly known species is the one tending toward (though not exclusively residing in) coastal zones. The migratory animal is larger, and very little is understood about it.

COMMENT: Here we have, in the 21st century, the discovery of one of the largest fishes on the planet. It can be argued that, when Dr. Mitchell publishes her formal paper naming the new species, it will be a reclassification rather than an entirely new discovery, but this does not diminish the impact of her findings.
It's interesting to note that this episode, with its determination of new species based in part on range and migration, is reminiscent of the debate over whether "resident" and "transient" orcas are members of the same species. In that case, too, there is speculation about a third, poorly understood, population which may qualify as a species. That a huge fish and a huge marine mammal raise similar questions is a thought-provoking hint about how much we still have to learn about the denizens of the sea.

Intriguing results of "open science"

Can scientific specialists throw a question, problem, or paradigm out to a mass audience and get useful information back? Sometimes, yes!

The Colorado Springs Lion: That Darn Cat

Colorado Springs Gazette reporter Brian Hughes called today to discuss the unexplained lion sightings near the Springs. I'll link to his next article when it's posted.

What's that bug?

The gardens surrounding London's Natural History Museum are being overrun by a miniscule red-and-black insect. The interesting part? The museum's world-class staff of entomologists don't know what it is. The insect has been around since last year, and it remains unclassified. The museum's collections manager commented, "We waited to see if the insect would survive the British winter. It did and it's thriving, so now we had better figure out what it is."

Is a cryptozoologist a job?

This lighthearted piece from the Toronto Sun looks at jobs where anyone can claim a professional-sounding title without any real standards. I would like to know who the self-described "cryptozoologist" is who told the author the monster in Beowulf was a T. rex. That would have made for a real short epic. ("Taste my sword, you foul...AAAGH")

Chasing the biggest fish

A National Geographic project has scientists around the world studying the biggest freshwater fish and how we can ensure their survival. It's not even clear we know all fish over 6 feet (1.8m) long, the project's basic size criterion, and even less clear whether we know just how big some of them get. This article profiles the search for a freshwater stingray that may be over 4 meters in "wingspan."

Mars had water - a lot of it

There has been a long-running debate about whether Mars had flowing surface water despite its small size and thin atmosphere. Recent probes and studies have given the "yes" side the advantage, and NASA scientist now think they've settled the topic. Spectroscopy from Martian orbit has detected compounds made in the presence of water in greater proliferation than anyone expected. Mars had large lakes and flowing rivers, which persisted for many millions, even billions, of years. Brown University scientist Jack Mustard declares, "It wasn't this hot, boiling cauldron. It was a benign, water-rich environment for a long period of time." The implications for life - or at least fossilized microbial life traces - are obvious. Future rovers, two of which (one NASA, one ESA) are in preparation, have rich targets to explore in the search for such traces.

The world's newest primate takes a bow

It’s not surprising that Madagascar, home of several recently discovered lemurs, has yielded up the newest primate – and one of the smallest. The tiny mouse lemur from the protected forest area of Makira has been christened Microcebus macarthurii, after the MacArthur Foundation, which provided funding for the studies leading to the discovery.

MicrospaceNews: UK space contest fires up students

A contest run by British National Space Centre and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. to see what team of 14 - 19 year-old students could design the best 1kg science package for a satellite has produced six finalists. According to SSTL’s Dr. Stuart Eves, "The competition entries we have had so far are hugely encouraging. Any of the six finalists could make their idea literally 'out of this world' by winning the prize of flying their experiment on one of SSTL's satellites in 2010." The finalists have presented their ideas to the UK’s Minister for Science and Innovation, Ian Pearson.
COMMENT: The involvement of a Cabinet-level official shows how seriously this initiative is being taken. Would that NASA could attract that kind of attention in inspiring the next generation of space engineers! Maybe the teams working on NASA’s new ASMO challenge (see below) will get to present their results to the NASA Administrator, which would certainly be encouraging in its own right as well as garnering more press attention.

MicrospaceNews: GAO weighs in on Operationally Responsive Space

The GAO finds, "DOD is making some progress in developing the ORS concept, but whether it will meet warfighter requirements is unclear, principally because the concept is in the early stages of development and not commonly understood by all members of the warfighter and national security space communities."

Meanwhile, DOD acquisition czar John Young has pulled some of the space acquisition decision-making back from the USAF and NRO into the new Space and Intelligence Capabilities office. Running this new office is Young protégé Joshua Hartman, who is known for his support of ORS funding while a Congressional committee staffer.

COMMENT: It’s not unusual for a new concept to have growing pains and for the relevant bureaucracy to take a while to come to grips with it. For ORS advocates, persistence will be everything.

Lions and Bears, Oh, My!

The wildlife business here in Colorado Springs is pretty busy this week.

First, we had the lion (see previous post). Authorities are pretty well convinced this was a large dog, a Great Pyrenees or or a Chow, with the former being closer to lion size but the latter providing a closer match in appearance. It remains odd that no one has reported a large and expensive dog missing, and odder still that the DOW expert has not clarified (or at least has not been quoted in the news media) how the agency's experts came to describe tracks found during the search as lion prints six inches across. That seems to put them out of the dog range even if you assume an expert confused canine and feline impressions. (Such confusion is possible if you have smudged or faint impressions, but, as I mentioned yesterday, if the impressions weren't clear it seems improper to declare an ID in the first place.)

Then we had the bear. Black bears are very rare in the city of Colorado Springs, but one somehow wandered into a well-built-up area and was almost hit by a police car, after which he lodged himself in a tree. When he was nudged out of the tree with a firehose, he ran through the glass front of a Circuit City store. The bear is headed out of town, with authorities keeping an eye on him to make sure there are no incidents.

The combination led the DJs on 106.3 FM this morning to say things like "I'm waiting for the chupacabras sightings" and "Where is the Loch Ness Sasquatch in all this?" Since we are fudging the line between zoolog yand cryptozoology already, I should follow up on my comment yesterday about how many unexplained lion sightings take place. See Mysterious America: The Revised Edition by Loren Coleman (NY: Paraview, 2001). I've not covered that topic in my own books, thought I spent considerable time on the related issue of the problematic Eastern cougar.

A Colorado Lion?

An interesting scene unfolded today in my home county (El Paso County, Colorado, home of Colorado Springs) a few miles east of my domicile. Numerous reports and two cell-phone camera snaps of an "African lion" had a posse of officials searching by foot, vehicle, dog, and helicopter for a dangerous foreign feline. People from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, the sheriff's department, the police department, and the state Division of Wildlife, along with experts from a sanctuary called Big Cats of Serenity Springs and a number of local volunteers, scoured the county east of Colorado Springs for most of the day.
Early on, there seemed no doubt it was a lion (for the record, neither the zoo nor the sanctuary was missing any lions). According to Michael Seraphin of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the photos and some tracks were enough to determine not only that it was a large cat, but that it was an African lion (Panthera leo) and not a mountain lion (Puma concolor), a natural resident of these parts.
And then the whole thing kind of petered out. Officials announced there was not, after all, evidence for a lion, and they blamed a large dog, likely a Great Pyrenees.

The alleged culprit matches the size of a lion (a big one being roughly equivalent to a medium-sized lion) but not the rest of the description. Some have shaggy hair on their very robust shoulders, which might give the impression at a glance of a slight mane, but the color of this dog is white, varying no darker than a pale yellow. And they are not common dogs - someone should have reported one missing.

(There’s a photo at http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/greatpyrenees.htm of a slightly yellowish example, named, interestingly, Lion.)

As to the reported paw print, the spokesman for the Division of Wildlife was definite about calling it a lion's. If the prints were clear, an expert should not have confused canine with feline spoor. If they were smudged or faint, he shouldn’t have been venturing an ID at all.

This leaves the whole matter a bit confusing. There have been a surprising number of "African lion" reports in places across the U.S., almost never resulting in the discovery of a lion. Some have been identified as dogs, others left unexplained. Some cryptozoologists go so far as to postulate the survival of the North American lion Panthera leo atrox, but I think this is stretching the evidence considerably, given that fossils of this cat disappear about 10,000 years ago.

I'll report more if any further evidence turns up. For now, we have a mystery.

MicrospaceNews: NASA considers new student satellite program

NASA NEWS RELEASE:
NASA Considers Development of Student-Led Satellite Initiative
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA is considering the development of a university-based, student-led satellite development initiative to begin passing the space exploration torch to a new generation.
The American Student Moon Orbiter, or ASMO, concept invites students, faculty and industry leaders in the U.S. with experience in university-based, student-led spaceflight projects to respond to a Request for Information which is planned for release this month and will remain open for at least 90 days. The orbiter will be a small satellite that could orbit the moon and carry scientific instruments designed and developed by students. It is aligned with NASA's lunar exploration agenda. Under the ASMO concept, teams would learn directly from NASA mentors as part of a diverse, nationwide, higher education initiative that enables students to design, build, launch, operate and own a small spacecraft and its payload. Students would acquire in-depth experience with satellite mission protocol and procedures, communications and project management. NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California and NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland are leading the ASMO initiative.
"NASA is laying the foundation for a multi-generation exploration program that eventually will see humans settle our solar system," said Ames Center Director S. Pete Worden. "To sustain this vision, we need the next crop of scientists and engineers to engage their minds and get hands-on experience."

COMMENT: Anything that re-engages American students in space exploration while developing hands-on expertise is a very good idea. It will be downright criminal if the agency doesn't follow through. Go AMSO!

MicrospaceNews: Update on Canada's NEOSSat

Here's an update on Canada's exciting small satellite mission, the asteroid-hunting and satellite-tracking NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite). David Cooper of prime contractor Dyacon notes, "NEOSSat requires remarkable agility and pointing stability that has never before been achieved by a microsatellite. It must rapidly spin to point at new locations hundreds of times per day, each time screeching to a halt to hold rock steady on a distant target, or precisely track a satellite along its orbit, and image-on-the-run."

MicrospaceNews: Surrey's latest endeavors

This item discusses the next group of five microspacecraft to go up from pioneer Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. It also has a great line from founder Sir Martin Sweeting, who discusses the reception his ideas about very small spacecraft got in the early days of Surrey. "This was in 1978-79. People thought we were pretty crazy. They said it would not be possible and even if it was it wouldn't be useful. And they were the polite ones."

Animal collecting in China's hidden valley

The latest of the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) expeditions mounted by Conservation International penetrated into the most remote area in all China (technically, in Tibet), the Medog river valley. Getting to the valley required trekking 140km and crossing two mountain passes at 4,200m. Warmed by air currents off the Indian Ocean, the valley offers tropical rainforest conditions in a most unlikely place. Scientists collected hundreds of specimens of small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. They are certain new species are among their haul. As Peking University biologist Wang Ho put it, "Medog is not only a biodiversity hotspot, but also the real frontline of scientific discoveries."

COMMENT: Being a field biologist takes a dedication most of us don't think about as we look at animals in books or in zoos. The RAP teams have been all over the world, often risking and occasionally losing their lives in the service of discovery and conservation.

Fossil-hunting in a coal mine: a scientist's odyssey

This story from the Bangkok Post follows Dr Yaowalak Chaimane and her team as she makes one fossil discovery after another in a very challenging environment: Thailand's largest coal mine. One of her recent finds is Siamoadapis maemohensis, a new genus and species of primate from the Miocene ear. The animal shares intriguing similarities with the modern lemurs of far-away Madagascar. In addition, she comments, "The dentition of a Siamoadapis maemohensis is extremely unique. Normally all animals have premolars with teeth smaller than its molars but this primate is different. The teeth on premolars are exactly like its molars."

COMMENT: This is a fascinating story of perseverance and dedication. Dr. Chaimane has to walk five kilometers every day just to get to the new face in the hot and filthy pit mine, where she collects hundreds of kilograms of lignite, dust, and debris. But the discoveries keep her going.

New book on SpaceShipOne

It's not like me to recommend a book I haven't read yet, but it's hard to see how Dan Linehan's new book SpaceShipOne: An Illustrated History could be anything but fascinating. Linehan promises a book full of "illustrations, photographs, and behind the scenes" information. The publisher does indulge in some hyperbole by describing the project as "classified," which would no doubt be a surprise to the government. On a poignant note, the Foreword is by the late Arthur C. Clarke. I have this one high on my reading list.

Farewell to Dr. Eric Guiler

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has written an excellent eulogy for a great scientist: conservationist, zoologist, and cryptozoologist Eric Guiler. Guiler, who was 85 at the time of his death, was the world's leading expert on the presumed-extinct Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). Guiler spent decades gathering evidence that the species was not extinct, although near the end of his life he believed that, while the animal had certainly survived its official 1936 demise, it might now be truly gone. Guiler was the longtime chairman of Tasmania's Animals and Birds Protection Board and worked with many other aspects of wildlife and habitat conservation, but it was his work (including two books) on the thylacine for which he will be most remembered.

COMMENT: I think Guiler proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the thylacine was not extinct in 1936, but he may well be right that the scattered individuals he tracked in subsequent decades no longer make up a viable population, if indeed any still exist. Much of what we know of this enigmatic marsupial is due to Guiler. I hope he has his answers now.

Paper as strong as steel?

Lars Berglund of the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology has taken a look at a long-existing process - the making of paper - and found that we're not doing it as well as we could. Current paper-making machines damage the cellulose fibers and produce paper that's not nearly as strong or enduring as it would be. Berglund's "nanopaper," made from pure extracted cellulose fibers, has a tensile strength nearly equal to that of stainless steel. It's a long way from being an industrially-viable product, but it offers the possibility of using paper in applications now using non-renewable resources.

COMMENT: I like the ingenuity here - "Let's examine something we've been doing for centuries and see if we can improve on it." On the other hand, the prospect of indestructible junk mail looms large....

Merge Earth sciences agencies?

Former heads of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey are recommending that the agencies be merged into a new Earth Systems Science Agency. NOAA and USGS each have responsibility for different areas of earth science, which these leaders argue are better dealt with by a single agency that can cross-pollinate expertise as well as exert more clout in the battle for funding. Former USGS head Charles Groat pointed to the challenges the nation faces in energy and in protecting the environment as rationales for the change, which, practically speaking, would have to be dealt with by the new President after his inauguration in January.
COMMENT: I see the rationale, but let's not be too hasty. Sometimes you can merge two agencies or companies which have built up individual expertise and see it diluted rather than strengthened. Each agency here is very good at what it does, which means the upper-level civil service management is effective. It might be dragged into bureaucratic turf wars and general confusion. So it's an idea to examine carefully.

MESSENGER rewrites the book on Mercury

Plantetary scientists who have analyzed the data from the MESSENGER probe's initial flyby of Mercury are "astonished." Mercury was always thought to be, essentially, a dead lump of rock: no water, no internal geological processes like vulcanism - heck, at one time we thought it didn't even rotate. Now we know it was shaped partly by volcanos and that its thin atmosphere, according to sample ions scooped up in MESSENGER's first visit, does indeed contain water vapor. A study of flyby data also confirmed a theory that Mercury has a liquid core.
MESSENGER science team member Thomas Zurbruchen said of the water: "Nobody expected that. I don't know a single person that did. We were astonished, just astonished."
How exactly does this sun-blasted planet boast water of any sort? There are three theories. The water may have come from comets; it may be the results of chemical reactions between the solar wind and the rocks of Mercury; or the planet may maintain (like Mars but on a much smaller scale) subsurface water ice in the polar regions.
COMMENT: This data (from the first flyby, remember: MESSENGER will be studying the planet for a long time yet) reminds us how much we have to learn. We are still learning basic information about a planet in our own solar system, information that contradicts the expectations of scientists who have studied the planet for many years. What else lies in the infinite realms beyond Earth, awaiting discovery?

The end of the world is coming (NOT)

This story updates the efforts by a single lawyer with a physics degree to stop the Large Hadron Collider project because the LHC may create mini-black holes or other phenomena that might destroy the Earth. The latest safety review has, once again, dismissed this as nonsense. What is really interesting here are the comments, which illustrate that fear of "big science," however unjustified in a particular case, has never gone away.

MicrospaceNews: A New Microsat Builder

Clyde Space LTD is not a completely new company. This Glasgow-based firm has been building power systems and other components for small spacecraft, but now it's ready to make the leap into building and operating microspacecraft of its own. Assuming fundraising works out, ScotSat-1 will be a 5kg satellite to be launched into LEO in 2010. Clyde Space founder Craig Clark is working with the University of Strathclyde on an instrument package. Clark told an interviewer, "It's got to be something a bit special. We're not just going to put some electronics in box and say: Ooh, we've just launched a satellite'. That's not going to show Scotland in the right light. We want to show what a great engineering nation we are. So it's going to be something that will push the boundaries of technology. At the end of the project, we will have a product we'll be able to sell to other people."

COMMENT: Montgomery Scott would be proud of that thinking. My best wishes to this new venture.

See also:http://www.satellite-links.co.uk/directory/clydespace.html

Uncovering George Washington

Archaeologists had to excavate three likely locations, but they are confident they've finally found the long-lost remains of George Washington's boyhood home. The site at Ferry Farm, just across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, yielded evidence that matched descriptions from Washington's letters, including the traces of a fire in 1740, and accounts from the Civil War, when Union troops massed at the farm. The one and a half story house measured less than 12 by 18 meters, but it was a comfortable home for the times.

COMMENT: Washington was a fascinating, multifaceted man - much more than just a good general, or even a good President. This is a facinating opportunity to learn more about the environment that shaped him.

Gravity waves and tornados

Are atmospheric gravity waves - the "ripples" created when any force disturbs the ocean of air surrounding Earth - strong enough to affect the weather? I was surprised to learn the answer was "yes." As meteorologist Tim Coleman explains in this article, a gravity wave created by, say, a sudden wind shear, will "push" on a rotating thunderstorm and compress it slightly out of shape. He says, "There is also wind shear in a gravity wave, and the storm can take that wind shear and tilt it and make even more spin. All of these factors may increase storm rotation, making it more powerful and more likely to produce a tornado." Doppler radar can track both the waves and the thunderstorms/tornados and observe this dynamic in action.

Thanks to Kris Winkler for sending me this item.

A thought on human history

This blog often visits paleontology and archaeology, and I came across this reminder today of how we need to approach our study of both.

"Consider the earth's history as the old measure of the English yard, the distance from the King's nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history."
- John McPhee

Hunting Russia's Wildman

This blog tracks a small expedition from the UK-based Centre for Fortean Zoology as its members trek through the Russian wilderness in pursuit of an unknown primate locally called the almas or almasty. The evidence turned up so far in the Caucasus region has been of the intriguing, rather then the conclusive variety, but I wanted to showcase this effort to point out that cryptozoologists are not just armchair amateurs. Many go, at their own expense, on difficult and sometimes very dangerous field searches. This expedition has had two brushes with death already, not to mention hassles with everything from altitude sickness to government bureaucrats as they penetrate an area the UK Foreign Office has advised its citizens to stay out of.
COMMENT: I salute your dedication, gentlemen. Good luck and good hunting!

100th anniversary of the Tunguska event

One of the most fascinating happenings in scientific history took place precisely 100 years ago. This was the Tunguska event, a cosmic collision that devastated 2,000 square kilometers of a (fortunately) remote and lightly populated area of Siberia. The force of the blast was estimated at 200 kilotons of TNT. When scientists finally got to the site, they were puzzled. They had assumed it was a meteorite or perhaps a comet, but there was no impact crater. Over the decades, this would lead to speculation as wild as antimatter, mini-black holes, and alien spaceships. It's now generally thought the cause was a stony meteorite that vaporized with explosive force 5-10 km above the ground, although some researchers still think a comet was more likely.
COMMENT: Whatever the Tunguska object was, it reminds us our existence on this planet is fragile. That's an important thought to keep in mind as we consider dangers from other Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that may appear in the future.

Farewell, Robert Seamans

From the NASA History Division:

"The NASA History Division is saddened to note the passing of Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr. on Saturday, June 28. During a very distinguished career, Dr. Seamans served as the NASA Associate and Deputy Administrator during much of the 1960s. He wrote two books that the NASA History Division published, an autobiography and a managerial account of the Apollo program. Please see http://history.nasa.gov/Biographies/seamans.html for links to these two publications, a link to the NASA Administrator's statement on Dr. Seamans' death, and biographical information about him. "

What "Nessie" isn't

www.plesiosaur.com is an altogether cool site with good information on the endlessly fascinating (and seemingly endless, as we keep finding new species) world of Mesozoic marine reptiles. In the link above, the author cogently explains why, if there is a "monster" in Loch Ness, it's not a plesiosaur.

Space exploration quote for the day

Gary Barnhard, National Space Society:

"We have wasted a generation of engineers on PowerPoint slides."

Lions use roads to make giraffe hunting easier

Giraffes, normally fleet-footed creatures for all their size, run much better on the grassy plains than they do on a hard surface. A giraffe forced to run on a paved road slows down, apparently through loss of traction (or perhaps just because it hurts to strike a hoof on asphalt.) As Darren Naish reports, lions in the Kruger and Nairobi National Parks have learned how to use this fact. They force a giraffe onto a road and chase it down there, with a improved probability of success vs chasing a giraffe across the plains.

The little asteroid hunter

Here's another article on one of most intriguing microsatellite projects, Canada's NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite). Bearing a striking resemblance to a digital camera, it's a good reminder of how technological advances are allowing important science to be done by smaller and less costly spacecraft. To be launched in 2010, the 65-kg, $12M spacecraft will perform dual missions: hunting for asteroids and serving as a platform for high Earth Orbit (HEO) space object surveillance. Microsats no longer have to be single-mission or single-purpose, as was often the case with older, bulkier, and less flexible technology.

Martian soil - it's good stuff

The first soil analysis from the Mars Polar Lander is in, and it's encouraging. The Martian surface has the minerals needed to support plants that don't mind alkaline soil. A lot of Earth plants would do fine. One investigator said, "There is nothing about the soil that would preclude life. In fact, it seems very friendly ... there is nothing about it that is toxic."

Falcon 1 launch slips a month

The Falcon 1 launch from Kwajalein with the Jumpstart mission and other payloads (see below) has been set back. The range has informed SpaceX its assets are needed for other launches. "Launch is no sooner than late July to early August," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. "We will use the time to do additional checkouts."
COMMENT: I'm not impressed: the launch has been on the schedule a long time, and indeed is already behind the original schedule for technical reasons. A week before the launch is finally set to go, the range finds it can't support the flight for another month or more? It's puzzling.

Spotting species is an uncertain science

Anecdotal observations are important to scientists trying to determine the range, habitat, and migration habits of a species. But anecdotes can be wrong. Are they too widely accepted? Researchers for the US Forest Service's Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain Research Stations report that being too quick to accept anecdotal evidence resulted in mistakes in the conservation plans for three species, including the ivory-billed woodpecker. They want scintists and agencies to evaluate such data "on a sliding scale."

COMMENT: No one, including cryptozoologists, thinks every eyewitness account should be accepted. These folks are saying we should raise the bar a notch, and that has merit. The risk is that we could miss important data. It always has been, and always will be, on "a sliding scale."

Oldest four-legged animal found

Ventastega curonica is believed to be an evolutionary dead end, but it's an important dead end. It is, as far as paleontologists know, the earliest four-legged animal to emrge on Earth. The fossil remains found in Latvia indicate it looked, as one paleontologist put it, like "a small alligator with a fin." The theory is that this is a creature of the shallows that found advantage in being able to haul itself over sandbars or perhaps even out of the water.

Frogs that carry concealed weapons

Rogue: When they come out... does it hurt?
Wolverine: Every time.

That snippet from the X-Men movie concerns the metal claws Wolverine can extend through his hands on mental command. Now we know some frogs actually do something similar.
A team led by Harvard University biologist David Blackburn was spurred to investigate African frogs after Blackburn was scratched in the field by animals that didn't seem to have anything to scratch with. It had long been known that several species of the family Arthroleptidae sported small bony nodules near the fingertips, but no one had ever investigated these properly. Now we know they are claws that can be extended through the skin, at the cost of a non-trivial injury to the frog.

COMMENT: It's another reminder of how endlessly inventive nature can be. Still, the evolutionary reasons why the frog would have a hidden defense of this type are puzzling. Why not have the claws out all the time and avoid all that trouble, or develop retractable sheaths like cats? We don't know.

MicrospaceNews: ComDev's first contract

On the heels of announcing its intent to develop a full microsatellite capability, the Canadian firm ComDev has its first order. The satellite systems company has a $10M contract for the The Maritime Monitoring and Messaging Micro-satellite (M3MSat). THis will be a ''technology demonstration mission'' jointly funded by the Canadian Space Agency and the Department of National Defence. The satellite will use ComDev's automatic identification system (AIS) equipment to track ships in Canadian and international waters.

MIcrospaceNews: SSTL's next-generation Earth observer

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) issued a press release on its newest imager:

"SSTL's privately funded UK-DMC-2 has passed its Test Readiness Review (TRR) at its Manufacturing Integration and Test Facilities in Guildford, UK. Scheduled for build completion in September 2008, the new Earth Observation satellite will provide higher performance imaging capabilities to the Disaster Monitoring Constellation which is operated by SSTL's subsidiary DMCii.
UK-DMC-2 will carry an enhanced version of the DMC (Disaster Monitoring Constellation) camera which will provide 600km wide multi-spectral images of the Earth at a ground resolution of 22-metres. This is an advance on the current 32-metre DMC imager, which has been successfully providing imagery in support of deforestation, disaster relief and agricultural monitoring for over five years in the current constellation of five spacecraft."

COMMENT: The Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) has been a major technical success for microsats as well as an outstanding example of international space cooperation. Good luck with the new generation!

NASA scientist James Hansen goes ballistic

You remember Dr. Hansen: a prominent climate specialist who complained loudly (and with some justification) that NASA had blocked release of his work supporting human-driven global warming. Whether you think Hansen is right or wrong, his recent actions threaten his credibility, and maybe they should. A stunning article quotes him as saying oil company executives should be tried for crimes against humanity for downplaying the threat of climate change. He told an interviewer that he intended to tell Congress: “When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organizations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime." The Guardian newspaper also reports, “He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated.”

COMMENT: Now this is ridiculous. First, how does Hansen propose to differentiate between someone putting out deliberate misinformation and the many people (including some energy company folks, certainly, but also independent scientists) who honestly disagree with the “scientific majority” position on this topic? He would criminalize scientific dissent, and that is a crime against the bedrock of free inquiry and debate on which all science rests. Also, it should be pointed out Hansen’s political intentions are a major, flat-out violation of the Hatch Act outlawing partisan political activity by Federal employees.

Dr. Hansen, you may have gotten yourself in the newspaper, but you have done your cause no favors this time

Microspace News: PreSat and NanoSail-D

While most of the attention concerning the upcoming Falcon 1 mission has focused on the AFRL payload, the launch from Kwajalein includes a NASA payload from Ames Research Center called PreSat. PreSat’s objectives are to demonstrate Ames’ 2nd Generation Modular Triple CubeSat Nanosatellite Platform as well as evaluation the performance of a Generic BioFluidic Sample Management and Handling Subsystem. The spacecraft will be bundled with AFRL’s Operationally Responsive Space payload and the NanoSail-D solar sail experiment. NanoSail-D is intended to deploy the first working solar sail and further a collaborative relationship between the Ames and Marshall centers for future small satellite initiatives. The sail will cover 10 square meters. The payloads will go into a high LEO trajectory of 685 X 330 km at an inclination of 9 degrees. Both NASA spacecraft are “blogging” as “themselves” on www.twitter.com.
See:
http://www.presat.org/
http://www.crestnrp.org/nanosail/

Exotic cat colonizes Florida?

This intersting post from Cryptomundo.com comes from Dave Pelly in Florida. Pelly has been gathering information to prove that central Florida supports a small population of the jaguarundi(Puma yaguarondi), a cat not known to be established further north or east than the southern regions of Texas and Arizona.

COMMENT: I love these types of mysteries, especially from my old home state. Though much smaller than the cougar (which is now known to be closely related), the fact that black or nearly black jaguarundis exist might account for some "black panther" reports from the American South. Good luck, Dave.

Microspace News: Sir Martin Sweeting wins award

Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, founder of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd,, has won the 2008 Sir Arthur Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award. The "Arthurs" are given in the UK for contributions to space flight.
His acceptance comments included:
“It is a great honour to receive this award and especially in the month during which Sir Arthur sadly passed away. As a teenager, I was captivated by Sir Arthur’s books and particularly the film 2001: A space odyssey which inspired me to strive for a career in space.”


COMMENT: Surrey, founded in 1985, has launched 27 small satellites, many of them highly innovative and some real breakthroughs. Go forth, Sir Martin, and conquer new frontiers.

Microspace News: The N-Prize

Here is an interview with Dr. Paul Dear, founder of the N (Nanosatellite)-Prize. The N-Prize will be awarded thus:

"... the N-Prize is a £9,999.99 (sterling) cash prize which can be claimed by any individual, or group, who are able to prove that they have put into orbit a small satellite. The satellite must weigh between 9.99 and 19.99 grams, and must orbit the Earth at least 9 times. This project must be done within a budget of £999.99 (sterling)."
That budget includes launch, and you can't use a donated launch vehicle: someone has to invent a radical nanosat launch system. Conventional rockets, balloon launches, and gun launches are suggested options.

Dear says:
"It’s true that the prize money is ridiculously small for a space competition. Nobody in their right mind is going to enter for the prize money - and people who aren’t in their right mind are my kind of people! If the prize becomes bigger, then we’ll start to see entrants who treat this as a business proposition, and who are willing to invest huge resources to win the prize. I’d rather keep it small, so that we attract enthusiastic nuts who are doing it for the challenge."

Several serious teams have already entered. The N-Prize website is: http://www.n-prize.com/

COMMENT: OK, so it's impossible, or nearly so. Dear doesn't care: he wants to see just how ingenious space enthusiasts can be. I don't think it's going to be done, but I wish "full speed ahead" to everyone trying it: surely, out of their efforts will come some ideas that can be applied to other projects to reduce size and cost. As Shaw said, all progress depends on the unreasonable among us.

Ice on Mars

The white material uncovered by the Phoenix Mars Lander's digging scoop has disappeared over the last four days. Conclusion: "It must be ice," said Dr Peter Smith, the mission's Principal Investigator from the University of Arizona. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice." In two other spots, the lander arm has stopped digging automatically when it hit a hard surface just beneath the dirt.
COMMENT: They're breaking out the champagne at NASA. Evidence that Mars has a permafrost layer just under the soil in the north polar region has huge implications for understanding the climate, the planet's geological history, and its potential to support life. They'll have to use plain old Earth ice cubes for the toast, of course. Martian ice would cost several million dollars per kilogram if it could be delivered.

New bird from China

The latest new bird species comes from a forest near China's border with Vietnam. The Chinese media agency Xinhua has announced the finding of the bird, labled the Nonggang babbler (Stachyris nonggangensis).
The bird is dark brown with a few white and gray markings. It reportedly prefers walking to flying, except when startled.

THANKS to Loren Coleman for drawing my attention to this with his post on Cryptomundo.com.

The Yeti's foot

Over at Darren Naish's Tetrapod Zoology blog, there is a lively discussion of one of the most intriguing pieces of evidence in the cryptozoology files: the Shipton footprint. Taken in the snow on Menlung Glacier in the Himalayas by mountaineers Eric Shipton and Michael Ward in 1951, it remains a puzzle.

Here's what I added to that discussion:

A few points:
First, the photo sometimes published showing a series of tracks is, if I recall correctly, an unrelated image of goat prints. If Shipton and Ward actually took a good shot showing the series of yeti tracks (which they should have, but I've not read of them ever referring to it), it was spoiled or lost.
Second, there does appear to be some melting and refreezing in the heel, but there could not have been much, given that other areas don't show it.
Third, arguably the most eminent scientist ever to write on the topic, John Napier, wrote he might accept a composite of a bare and sandaled human print, but the explanation was not really convincing: he would have dismissed the yeti entirely except this print was "the one item in the whole improbable saga that simply sticks in my throat."

Fourth, and most important: the composite human print theory, in my experience, just does not work. I have tried this at different latitudes, altitudes (ok, only up to 6,000 feet), temperatures, angles to the sun, and textures of snow (wet/heavy, dry, and in between). At the risk (ok, it was more of a certaintly) of my wife saying I was crazy, I've made bare prints in snow and then trodden on them with various types of footwear, and also tried it in the opposite sequence. It just doesn't work. The toes never lengthen and/or separate while remaining crisp-looking. They melt into a blob. There's some variation in shape, time, etc under different conditions, but the end result is still the same: At no time do I get anything resembling the Shipton print.

I'd be curious to know whether anyone else's experimental results have been different.

Matt Bille
http:/mattbille.blogspot.com

New bird from Columbia

From the Serranía de los Yariguíes mountains in Colombia comes the world's newest bird, a subspecies of the Pale-bellied Tapaculo christened Cytalopus griseicollis gilesi after conservationist Robert Giles. The mostly-gray bird is distinguished from other Pale-bellied Tapaculos by differences in its calls as well as a darker back and longer tail.
COMMENT: OK, it's "only" a subspecies - a category some biologists have almost given up on. But every distinct animal we find, every new addition to the richness of the zoological gene pool, is important. Expeditions to this same area have already yielded a new butterfly species and a strikingly colorful new species of bird, the Yariguies Brush-Finch described in 2006. Keep up the search!

Mars: the search for water

There are two new two dispatches from the scientific front lines of the Martian quest. The first is that the initial sample examined in the Phoenix lander's onboard laboratory showed no water. Mission scientists were quick to point out that was not a surprise, though, because the sample sat for days on the lab's sifter while they tried to shake the clumpy stuff through, and any water would likely have vanished into the dry Martian atmosphere. The second is that scientists are still trying to figure out whether the whitish material exposed by the probe's sample collection scoop is ice or salt. One way this will be analyzed is to take repeated photographs and see whether the amount of material changes over time: salt should remain as is (absent one of those nasty Martian dust devils) while ice sublimates and should reveal itself by shrinkage.

Meanwhile, scientists are getting really cool microscopic images of the soil that did make it into the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) lab. As Scientific American describes it, "The high-resolution images particles of a range of different sizes, from bigger, black, glassy particles thought to have been forged in ancient volcanoes down to finer, more iron-rich grains that may have resulted from the glassy pieces grinding together."

COMMENT: It's pretty awesome to just step back a minute and think about what NASA is doing here. An array of complex instruments was launched into space on powerful rocket booster, traveled years and millions of miles, dropped through the atmosphere of another planet, landed perfectly, and is now operating with no significant problems to serve as the eyes and hands of human science. It's really quite something. We as a species are entitled to give ourselves a pat on the back.

Len Cormier, R.I.P.

A sad farewell tonight to Len Cormier of PanAero LLC. Len, who worked in the launch business for half a century, was best known as a tireless designer and promoter of reusable space vehicles. He didn't get enough backing to finish his contender for the X-Prize, but it did not slow him down: he kept proposing updated concepts to the NRO, to NASA's COTS program, and to anyone else who might support what he felt was a practical road to more affordable and reliable launch.
His latest design was “Space Van 2011”, a two-stage horizontal takeoff and landing craft that he believed could service the ISS and do other orbital missions for a fraction of the cost of a space shuttle or a Soyuz.
COMMENT: I knew Len only by correspondence, but he was a very helpful person to anyone with space interests, and clearly devoted to his dream of moving us one step closer to a spacefaring civilization. The Earth could use more Len Cormiers. Farewell, voyager.

Can microbes solve the energy crunch?

Answer: maybe, at some point, thanks to some cutting-edge genetic engineering. A company called LS9 has demonstrated that an altered bacterium can consume agricultural waste and excrete crude oil. In about a month, the company intends to actually run a vehicle on "bug poop."
COMMENT: It's too early to predict whether this approach will make a significant impact, but it's an example of the human ingenuity which the "we're doomed" school of thought discounts too quickly.

Building blocks found in space rocks

A sceintific team led by Zita Martins of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London reports it has found precursors to DNA and RNA in a meteorite. The molecules involved, uracil and xanthine, were found in a meteorite that landed in Australia in 1969. It does not prove molecules from space were crucial to life on Earth - they may have formed here independently - but it does show how widespread life-related compunds may be in the vast spaces between worlds.

Death of a red giant

NASA's GALEX satellite has provided astronomers with a sight never before witnessed: the blast of ultraviolet light that comes just ahead of a star going spuernova. The phenomenon had been predicted, but couldn't be seen through Earth's atmosphere. A supernove is normally noticed only days or weeks after the light from its collapse reaches Earth. Now scientists can observe the whole cycle, which has much to teach about the composition, life, and death of stars in addition to being simply awesome.

Another step for private space flight

The firm Space Adventures, in partnership with the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation. has arranged for five private citizens to ride up on Soyuz capsules to visit the International Space Station. Now it's taking the next step: ordering a modified Soyuz capsule for a private mission carrying two of its clients. Space Adventures is funding the separate mission to increase its capacity without interfering with regular Soyuz/ISS missions.

COMMENT: OK, this avenue to space is still strictly for people willing to part with a reported $20M and undergo months of cosmonaut training. The backlog of passengers wiling to go to such lengths, though, speaks volumes about the human fascination with space travel.


Thanks to Kris Winkler for pointing me to this item

Are Darwinism and Christianity compatible?

Dinesh D'Souza adds to the debate with this interesting blog post, where he points out that Christians going back to Augustine havve assumed the Biblical account of Creation is allegorical. He argues that only two groups read it literally: fundamentalists and the strident atheists like Richard Dawkins who want to paint all Christians as anti-science fundamentalists.

Microspace news: Farewell to CHIPSat

CHIPSat was one of the smallest and cheapest of modern space science missions, having consumed only $14.5 million when it reached orbit in 2003. The Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer satellite was designed to look for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) emissions. It produced significant science on a tiny budget of $100,000 a year. The mission's "parents" at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory have proposed other experiments and would be happy if NASA turned their bird on again, but in today's space budget climate, even $100K is hard to find. CHIPSat was the first satellite to communicate by Internet Protocol (IP) and the first built by the entrepreneurial space firm Space Dev.
COMMENT: CHIPSat showed everyone that you really could do important sicnece missions "on a shoestring" if everyone did their jobs right. Congratulations to the people of SpaceDev, NASA, UCB, and other organizations involved in this pioneering mission.

Welcome home, Discovery

The STS-124 mission is complete and the crew of Discovery is back on the ground. After some concern over a metal clip that floated free from the rudder, NASA engineers gave the shuttle a "Go" to land, which they did Saturday morning after a 14-day mission to the ISS. NASA now turns its attention to the next mission, scheduled for October, and to repairing the flame trench under the shuttle launch pad, where over 5,000 fire-resistant bricks emplaced during the Apollo era were torn loose by Discovery's launch. No delay to the flight schedule is expected.

Woodpecker redicovered after 80 years

The Caatinga woodpecker (Celeus obrieni) has until now been known from a single specimen collected in Brazil 1926. It's a handsome brown-and-tan bird with a white belly and a showy crown of red feathers. Without a second specimen or even a reported sighting of the species in over 80 years, though, extinction was widely presumed. But now we do have a new specimen, discovered in the Tocantins region by Brazilian ornithologist Advaldo do Prado. Stuart Butchart of BirdLife International commented, “Caatinga woodpecker and rediscoveries like it provide hope for other South American birds currently missing and feared extinct, some of which haven’t been seen for over 150 years.”

Advertisement sent to the stars

The EISCAT scientific radar station on the Norwegian island of Svalbard has used its array of dish antennas (normally used for studying the upper atmosphere) to send a Doritos advertisement toward Ursa Major.
Scientists involved doubt that any alien intelligence will reconstruct the mpeg file and watch the ad, but they will recognize it's a structured message from an intelligent source.

COMMENT: A treaty governing broadcasts meant to be received by alien intelligences has been proposed, and it's a good idea. While "spillover" of Earth broadcasts into space is inevitable, deliberate attempts at communications should be reviewed by a broad spectrum (no pun intended) of scientists to make certain we are sending the message our species would want to send.

Pluto is not a planet, it's a "Plutoid"

If Pluto is not a planet, what is it? What do you call a large body in an elliptical orbit around the Sun that still does not quality for the new International Astronomical Union (IAU) definition of a planet? The IAU has now, in essence, allowed Pluto to save face just a little bit by announcing "plutoid" as the new term for this class of objects IF said objects are beyond the orbit of Neptune.

COMMENT: The IAU's press release really does not make this very clear to the layperson. Some things are just supposed to be what they've always been called. As Stephen J. Gould argued, a brontosaurus should be a brontosaurus even if the rules of nomenclature call for "apatosaurus." And Pluto just should have been given a special exemption for new classifications and labeled a planet simply because the whole world has called it that ever since it was discovered.

From the IAU:

"Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris. It is expected that more plutoids will be named as science progresses and new discoveries are made.

The dwarf planet Ceres is not a plutoid as it is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Current scientific knowledge lends credence to the belief that Ceres is the only object of its kind. Therefore, a separate category of Ceres-like dwarf planets will not be proposed at this time."

The birth of the bow

This story focuses on an interesting analysis (if still somewhat speculative) concerning just how Native Americans developed the bow and arrow. This weapon system evolved in many cultures around the world and had as its predecessor the atlatl, or spear thrower. University of Missouri archaeologists have documented a wide variety of arrow points appearing about 1,500 years ago, which then were "necked down" to a few types. Their conclusion is that, once the concept of the bow had been developed, artisans tried many different types of points, mated with many varieties of shafts (not preserved). With no understanding of the theory involved, Native Americans went through periods of trial and error before finding a good combination of factors including shaft length and thickness, point size and shape, and design of the bow itself. Once the bow was mature, it quickly displaced the atlatl and became the premier weapon for combat as well as hunting.

"Unicorn deer" observed in Italy

A deer with one horn in the middle of its forehead is living in a nature preserve in Italy. The animal, a roe deer about a year old, lives in a reserve near Florence. Interestingly, the animal's twin (the births were observed by researchers) has the normal complement of horns. On expert commented that, while one-horned deer have been seen before, they are usually simply missing one horn. Seeing one horn in the center indicates a more puzzling genetic oddity.
COMMENT: "Unicorn" cattle and goats have been produced artificially by grafting the horn buds together in the desired spot soon after birth, but it's not clear whether there are any good prior records of wild animals being born with this feature. This case shows such a genetic freak is possible, raising the question of whether animals like this deer could have played a role in the origins of the unicorn myth.

Checking out of the orbiting hotel

While everyone was focusing on the qualities of Martian dirt (see below), the crew of STS-124, the shuttle Discovery, was executing a near-perfect mission to expand the International Space Station with the Japanese Kibo laboratory. The shuttle should land Saturday. Commander Mark Kelly signed off as they left the ISS with, ""We wish them the best with their expedition and we hope we left them a better, more capable space station than when we arrived. Sayonara."
COMMENT: Another reminder that humanity and its machines are slowly, bit by bit, accumulating the experience needed to build bigger structures in much more exotic places far from Earth.

Baking dirt on Mars

NASA seems to have solved that pesky clumped-dirt problem, and the TEGA instrument will soon be incubating Martian soil looking for interesting stuff.

A cetacean success story: humpbacks rebound

Amid the gloomy news from the conservation world comes a welcome nugget worth cheerign about. The humpback whale was a species hard hit by the whaling trade: some 1,400 animals made up the entire Pacific Ocean population in 1966. Forty-one years after a ban on hunting the species was instituted, scientists analyzing the results of an exhautive photographic survey report there are an estimated 20,000 Pacific humpbacks. Jay Barlow of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Southwest Fisheries Science Center said, "While I agree that conservation concerns are not eliminated, this is fundamentally a good-news story. If the world had more examples like this, I think that the people of the world would be more inclined to believe that conservation can make a difference."
COMMENT: Amen to that.