NASA launches the last space shuttle

Next Saturday will mark the end of an era in the field of space exploration. Atlantis will take off and you will never again fly a shuttle to their characteristics. The XXI century will be to MPCV, it plans to ship to Mars.

Beyond the sky, visible from the ground there is another world. A world of ships, objects floating in the air without gravity, engineering and high-end people who literally spend their day flying in space.

People who for 30 years have crossed the sky in the so-called space shuttles. First reusable spacecraft and the first capable of putting satellites in orbit, the STS (Space Transport System) were created by NASA in the 70 to make the dream of building and maintaining a space station. The first flight was made by Columbia in 1981.

With the ongoing International Space Station, in orbit 360 kilometers high, and a fleet of four ferries which traveled more than 355 astronauts, NASA gets ready to experience a turning point for manned exploration.

The turning point has a date marked on the calendar: July 8, 2011. Within six days the shuttle Atlantis made the trip No. 33. And since then, the only ferry in operation after the removal of Discovery and Endeavour will leave the space.

STS-135 mission will last 12 days and will be responsible for four crew members. At the helm will be the commander Chris Ferguson, who will be accompanied by Doug Hurley as pilot and astronaut Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim and mission specialists. The ship on which travel is credited with turning the planet Earth 4648.

The winery will be a module filled with supplies and spare parts for the ISS (abbreviation for the International Space Station), which was planned in detail because from now on all charges must be shipped in automatic warehouses Russian, European and Japanese.

In return, the Atlantis will bring surplus equipment as an ammonia pump broke and needs a thorough overhaul on the ground.

What's next. The end of an era does not mean the end of exploring the world beyond the blue sky. Neither the United States to abandon the race. Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, worked on leave it clear in a press conference yesterday. "As exastronauta I am, I am here to say that American leadership in the space race will continue at least for the next half century. We laid the foundations for success, so failure is not an option."

The new commitment of the NASA spacecraft is MPCV (acronym in English that means multi-manned vehicle), a spacecraft designed to travel to get to Mars and asteroids, in addition to carrying astronauts to the international station. In fact you can travel 300 to 400 kilometers beyond the ISS.

The MPCV, which will soon be in 2016, can carry four astronauts on missions of up to 21 days and will feature two new systems: the abortion, it will be ten times safer, and the service module.

System abortion allowed to take control and divert the ship in case an emergency on the launch, still in the memory of the seven deaths engineers after the Challenger shuttle explosion in 1986. The service module will contain water, oxygen and nutrients.

Some experts say the new ship looks like Orion, which initially was to replace the space shuttle to carry astronauts to the moon around 2020, within the Constellation Program.

To achieve orbit, the Orion spacecraft would use the Ares I rocket, but in January 2010 the U.S. President, Barack Obama decided to cancel the program. Some believe that was the biggest debacle of the U.S. space program crew. The Constellation project was created by George W. Bush.

EXPECTATIONS. The shuttle fleet will be withdrawn due to safety concerns and the high operating cost for the U.S. government. Each flight will cost U.S. $ 1,450 million.

The new era will also give private companies to build rockets that are directed to the ISS. Thus, the space agency can focus on design and far more complex missions, such as those planned with MPCV. In addition, NASA is designing a rocket that will require heavy to launch the new ship.

The year 2025 appears as the first goal. By then, the United States hopes that a team of astronauts prop your feet on an asteroid. And the most ambitious plan is scheduled for 2030: to Mars.

Meanwhile, residents of the Kennedy Space Center launch complex of the ferries, are torn between sadness and anxiety. The purpose of this program is a blow to the local economy and will disappear some 27,000 direct and indirect jobs. The five or six releases a year attracted thousands of visitors.

"It's like losing a family member," said Marcia Gaedcke, president of the Titusville Chamber of Commerce. Maybe in five years to receive MPCV, the newest member of the family.

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The giant Dinosaurs Were Warm Blooded

After many years of debate between paleontologists, a study has shown that large dinosaurs had body temperatures between 36 and 38 degrees Celsius, similar to that of mammals. The results obtained by a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) seems to have been terminated, together with extinction, has been one of the major issues of conflict in the scientific community for decades.

The head of research, Robert A. Eagle recognizes that "until now, no one thought were possible to measure the temperature of the dinosaurs." However, he and his team have managed to do.

This fossil remains have used two types of sauropods (Brachiosaurus and Camarasaurus), giant dinosaurs recognized for having the neck and tail extremely long. Eagle's team has focused its research on the measurement of a compound consisting of oxygen and carbon isotopes found in the enamel of the teeth of fossilized dinosaurs. The study, published today in the journal Science , the cumulative amounts of this compound "are directly related to the temperature of the environment in which it was formed, in this case, the inside of the dinosaurs." The researcher says that the data obtained by this method are "very accurate" and have an error not exceeding one degree centigrade.

Although the data collected by Eagle and his team are correct, there is still room for debate. While many paleontologists that dinosaurs were assumed to have higher body temperatures, not all agree on whether these had thermoregulatory mechanisms internally, such as mammals, or dependent on external changes, such as lizards. "Having a high body temperature does not necessarily mean that dinosaurs could regulate its temperature as humans," said José Luis Sanz, a professor of paleontology at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

To those who defend the lack of internal control mechanisms, the fact that the temperature of the dinosaurs is high due to its enormous size. "The sheer volume of sauropods in relation to their body surface to take a long time ago to lose heat, "says Sanz," so that its temperature could be maintained high and approximately constant over long periods of time. "

Based on this phenomenon, called gigantotermia, earlier studies had determined that the temperature of the dinosaurs must have been above 42 degrees Celsius . According to Eagle, the difference between temperatures measured by his team "could indicate that sauropods had mechanisms to prevent your body from reaching the high temperatures typical of their giant size." The study presents several examples of these mechanisms, such as the provision of internal air sacs that help to cool or heat dissipation through a neck and a particularly long tail.

A new view
Nevertheless, Eagle concluded that their results fail to respond to the question of whether dinosaurs had only internal regulatory mechanisms or guidelines needed to help them regulate their temperature , as happens with modern reptiles.

In any case, Eagle says that "no one has ever made ​​a similar measurement of body temperature of dinosaurs ", which this study offers a" new view on the old debate about the physiology of dinosaurs. "

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Scientists take temperature of dinosaurs

Scientists have discovered a way to take the temperature of the dinosaurs, and it is almost equal to that of humans. Obviously you can not just put a thermometer under the tongue of a giant creature that has been extinct for millions of years.
But the closest thing to that is studying the fossil teeth, which may reflect body temperature.

The scientists found that Brachiosaurus had a temperature of 38.2 degrees Celsius (100.8 Fahrenheit), while the Camarasaurus was about 36.8 C (98.3 F). The average temperature of a human is 37 C (98.6 F). The amount of carbon and oxygen that are integrated into the enamel of the teeth varies with body temperature, and so the researchers could determine the temperature of the dinosaurs.

Their study, published online Thursday by the journal Science, is not the last word in the debate over whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded like modern mammals or cold blooded and require external heat sources to be active as lizards. When they were first discovered, the most accepted theory was that moved unhurriedly and were cold-blooded, but in recent years, the consensus favors the warm blood, which would allow them to be more active, as the raptors of films "Jurassic Park".

"Our analysis allows us to rule that may have been cold, such as crocodiles," said lead researcher Robert A. Eagle, California Institute of Technology in a statement.
But he added that "this does not necessarily mean that these large dinosaurs had a fast metabolism, such as mammals and birds might have been (...). gigantotermos and keep warm because they were too big."

A huge body mass easily keeps a constant temperature, explained co-author Thomas Tuetken, University of Bonn, Germany.

His research focused on sauropods, the largest dinosaurs, and the researchers explained that animals of this size can retain body heat even with a relatively low metabolism, simply because they are very large. Brachiosaurus weighed about 40 tons, while the Camarasaurus reached 15 tons. Both creatures lived about 150 million years.

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Millions of Sardines Die in Harbor Near Los Angeles

The Southern California port of Redondo Beach swims a huge carpet of dead sardines. The authorities suspect that spring storms pushed the fish to the coast. It looks from afar like a giant shiny silver carpet, and soon it could start to stink. Millions of dead sardines and anchovies in the southern California port of Redondo Beach near Los Angeles has been discovered on the surface, fin to fin, and not only that: According to media reports, are the fish on the floor of King Harbor, in some places piled up the dead fish almost half a meter on.

The exact reason for the mass death is still under investigation, but authorities are already certain: A natural cause has had suffocated the fish. The assumptions are that spring storms pushed off the sardines and anchovies in the course of several days in the harbor. Also wandering hungry whales have been sighted, could have contributed to speculation about the end of the fish, it said in the Los Angeles Times.

The little creatures arrived in the marina, a total of four berths with about 1,400 boats. The water is only shallow, too shallow to such a huge quantity of fish - though Mini expenditure - to provide enough oxygen, officials were quoted as saying. Added complication is that there is little water in the harbor movements.

Already a few days we sighted a large number of boat owners snapping for air sardines on the surface. Now the dead animals everywhere, the walls of the docks to the boats around. It glittered in the only way the morning sun, marked eyewitnesses.

"It is a natural, but unusual event," said Andrew Hughan of the California Fisheries Board. "It is an obscenity." Now there when cleaning a race with time. Sooner or later, inevitably, the dead animals washed up on the surface, "and that will not be pleasant," quoted The Los Angeles Times, a fishmonger in the harbor.

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Discovery Landed Safely After Last Flight

Cape Canaveral (DAPD) It was a landing point: At the minute is the longest serving U.S. space shuttle "Discovery" yesterday by its 39th and returned last mission from space. To clock 17.57 German time she put butter soft on the runway 15 of the space station on Cape Canaveral in Florida - after almost 13 days in orbit.

With the departure of the shuttle mission brought the multi-purpose Module "Leonardo" is not only the final element of the U.S. segment to the International Space Station ISS. He paid with a humanoid robot for routine work on board and - preventive - with large-caliber replacement parts for the upcoming years.

In the joy of the six-man crew under Commander Steve Lindsey on the successful fulfillment of the program, but also mingled with sadness. After almost 27 years, the Discovery out of service. She is due to recall in a museum in glorious times. So the countdown begins for the other two space shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis. In April and June, they start the last time Then the shuttle program, which was launched in 1981, adjusted for safety and cost reasons. Thousands of NASA employees have already lost their jobs to follow by others will follow.

Commander Lindsey said in a CBS interview even from space, the American nation could be "proud" to be what got the "Discovery" had done. It was a "unique science laboratory that could all". At the same time it depressing that no "ready-successor" was ready. However, he hoped that America sometime in the future in such a "powerful spaceship" would have.

The history of the space shuttle is a success story. She has been at its 39 missions, exactly one year away and has thereby brought more than 250 astronauts and cosmonauts more people into space as her "sisters". After the Challenger - and the Columbia disaster in 1986 and 2003, the Discovery sent back the first into space. She had to Eileen Collins, the first woman pilot and later with the first shuttle commander. Among her most prominent crew members were U.S. Senator Jake Garn in 1985, 1994 Sergei Krikalev was the first Russian and 1998, the 77-year-old veteran astronaut John Glenn as the oldest man in space.

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Controversial E10 fuel "The Fuel, The Bio is Not"

A flop from the start: The E10 fuel has not only startup problems. Rather, it is plant-derived self-deception - the combustion of renewable resources is to delay the technological conversion. This E10 is itself part of a problem that should solve the so-called biofuels actually.

Marketing is able to achieve miraculous. It makes perfectly ordinary lemonade healthy beverage and a means of transportation on four wheels, the epitome of a lifestyle. A car? No, a promise of freedom, independence, spontaneity. Grades of gasoline to pack either a tiger in the tank or hold a mysterious "V-Power" in the name to remember from little more than an exorbitantly high fuel bill. Quite different for E10.

Who wants to know today what the supposed bio-fuel E10 makes with the motor and what not, applies to the clueless station attendants and car dealers, sinister look in the. Campaigns, there has never been for the new fuel, more information is hidden in the depths of the Internet. Rarely is a product in the past been introduced mass-market such as this one.

In Internet forums, car fans comment instead of ominous noises in the engine and a supposedly soaring fuel consumption. This fuel that is loved by the oil industry not to accept the only car manufacturers - it is to save any more. While other products are charged with positive messages troublesome, this is now burdened with a mortgage that he can not get rid of: the doubt.

This Tuesday, a top-level talks to save what can still be saved. There will be accusations and appeals to drivers - always with one goal: the new fuel to somehow still get into the market. After all, is part and E10 is staying part of a system that will change, instead of pushing him, that he has apparently prefers a clean engine clean fuel. It is vegetable derived self-deception - the combustion of renewable resources is to delay the technological conversion. Therefore, E10 may not fail from the perspective of the federal government.

This is the promise of bio-fuel not much left anyway. A few years ago were fuels from renewable resources as a guarantor of independence. No longer sheikhs, but farmers should hold the developed countries mobile, from a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir.

Only too often it was a step forward at the expense of others. Growing demand for land leases had to be increased, ergo food was more expensive. On global markets know this issue limit. Increasingly, developing countries still the bio-fuel demand in developed countries. Not unusual for the price of hunger and poverty.

Because even the best regulation on sustainable production change little: the less can be more control, more detours that ethanol on its way to the developed world does. This is not a strange throbbing in the three-liter engine is the strongest argument against the E10 fuel. It is significant that, the price for conventional oil has driven this development.

The more crude oil on world markets, costs will be more lucrative replacement, the Agro-fuels from the monoculture. It is the sinister side of a connection between mobility and food markets that can not be solved - at least not until stand alone as internal combustion engines for mobility.

A strategy for a resource-saving movement but lack the federal government. No word on the speed limit, which could reduce the consumption of expensive oil is more than ten percent ethanol in gasoline, the subject is considered taboo. No word also to the German company car rules, maximize the tax benefit, the bigger and more wasteful of the motor. And of course, no word on the EU requirements for the fuel consumption of cars and light trucks. Which were eventually weakened only at the request of the German car industry. The pressure for change will eventually not be too large. The electric car as an alternative? This can take time.

This pressure is built up of the long global commodity markets to. It is reflected in fuel prices that Germany is not used, regardless of the introduction of the controversial ethanol fuel. If the assessment by the International Energy Agency that the world never will be promoted as much oil as in 2006, then to drivers with fuel prices like these days already familiar - they might someday be considered cheap.

This should also remember that, in the E10-disaster a receipt for allegedly exaggerated climate change want to see. For, quite regardless of the nature of the fuel, whether with V-Power or Super-E10: German cars currently get only one-third of their energy on the road, the rest goes to waste.

This is not only bad for the atmosphere, which must take from year to year legacy of personal mobility. It will provide for continuation of these kind of mobile workers. Do not substitute drugs allow movement independently of the expensive oil - but engines that no longer need.

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U.S. Space Shuttle "Discovery" at The Very Last Landing

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery is in its very last landing on the ground. Thus an era is ending. For after the return of the Space Shuttle from NASA after 27 years will go into "retirement." The "Discovery" will be considered in future in the museum, as the NASA space shuttles will weed out the final. Only a maximum of two U.S. shuttle flights scheduled to take place.

The last time the U.S. space shuttle "Discovery" in the past few days was in space. With its planned return to Earth on Wednesday evening a successful career is over. Of the three space shuttle, after the devastating disasters of the Challenger in 1986 and the "Columbia" in 2003 still exist, the "Discovery" at the longest in the service. The space shuttle first flew in 1984 and all completed more missions than the rest of the NASA shuttle fleet. 5600 times surrounded the "Discovery" the earth.

During her 27-year career, took the "Discovery" 180 people into space - including Eileen Collins, who in 1995 was the first shuttle pilot and commander in 1999 was the first to the lance for women in space. Also, the first African American space walker, Bernard Harris flew in 1995 aboard the "Discovery" in zero gravity. In 1985, Senator Jake Garn aboard, he was the first incumbent congressman in space.

Well-known research equipment had the "Discovery" on their missions board. The space shuttle brought first time in 1990 the space telescope Hubble into space, and put 1990 solar probe Ulysses "in the universe, the essential insights into the central star and collected in 2009 was taken out of service. The "Discovery" returned in 2008 parts of the Japanese laboratory Kibo to the ISS and in 1995 the first U.S. space shuttle, which flew to the Russian space station Mir.

Originally planned for November 2010 last flight had to be postponed because the external tank of the Discovery fine cracks had been discovered. On 24 February she finally broke on to the International Space Station ISS. The six crew members - five men and one woman - brought spare parts, a human-like robot and a new research and storage module to the ISS. In addition, members of her crew completed two field missions. "This has all the space shuttle system works for the whole mission extremely well," praised the leader of the Discovery mission, Leroy Cain, the end of last use.

After their return to earth to the "Discovery" is a museum piece. The U.S. space agency NASA is planning up to two more shuttle flights to the ISS: On 19 April is intended to launch the Endeavour into orbit on 28 June, the "Atlantis". After that U.S. astronauts will be on Russian rockets for transportation need to space.

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Atmosfair with Environment Rankings for Airlines

The compensation provider for the first time compiled a list of the most environmentally friendly airline - with surprising results. Similar to refrigerators and light bulbs usual, Atmosfair divided the airlines into Efficiency: The less CO2 emissions caused an airline to carry one passenger over a certain distance, the more efficient it is.

The categories A and B of this in the relatively complex calculations not only of the 116 investigated Airlines.

On the three top places to land on the short-range to 800 kilometers Air Europa, Kingfisher and Air New Zealand Link, are on the medium-range to 3,800 kilometers is Monarch Airlines and Eva Air, and on long-haul Air Transat, Alaska Airlines, and LAN. Lufthansa German Airlines ranks in the middle.

According Atmosfair Airline Index ( AAI ), the fuel consumption per passenger kilometer airline be very different one. Crucial to a good result is mainly young aircraft, close seating, and high utilization rates.

Not represented in the index are the low cost carriers. This one was deliberately excluded, Atmosfair CEO Dietrich Brock Hagen told the TAZ, because no one wanted to support their business model.

For the AAI, the airlines should young with their new and narrow cabin layout machines do not cut probably bad. "But we do not think the Ryanair customer, says with regard to our index: Great, that's totally organic, because I immediately book another flight," said Brock Hagen in the TAZ.

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U.S. Air Force Shoots Again Mini Spacecraft Into Space

The U.S. military has once again sent a secret mini-spacecraft on a test flight into space. The "Space Plane lifted on Saturday evening (local time) aboard an Atlas V rocket from the military part of the Space Station Cape Canaveral (Florida, U.S.) from, said the U.S. Air Force.

It was the second X-37B launch of a spacecraft's mission within a year. The first test flight lasted seven months. The second flight will serve to further coordination and for comparing the results of the maiden flight, it said. The latest model is equipped with an improved landing system, which will put the miniature space ship even with strong wind, like the newspaper Florida Today "reported.

At the X-37B space ships are a type of unmanned mini-version of the Space Shuttle. They are 8.90 meters long, has a wingspan of 4.5 meters and weighing nearly five tons. The "Space Plane", which is powered from batteries and solar cells with energy, is constructed to orbit the earth at a relatively shallow orbit and then to land on her.

The orbiter is designed for flights of up to 270 days. The Air Force suggested, however, extend beyond the second flight. "We could expand the mission to explore the possibilities of the aircraft to better understand," said program manager Lt. Col. Troy Giese of the newspaper. "We must always keep in mind that this is an experimental aircraft," said Richard McKinney from the U.S. Air Force. "This is just the second start and we have only just begun to test the system thoroughly."

It is unclear what future tasks take the military for the mini-space ship in the eye. The secret program of the Air Force has therefore already led to speculation and criticism. The first "Space Plane-launch last year Russia had accused the U.S. of wanting to militarize space, but which Washington rejected. The Air Force insists that the core of the mission were only testing for new technologies such as for navigation.

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