Sydney, July 24 (IANS) Using a traditional Chinese board game and artificial intelligence (AI), scientists have figured out how people become experts in their chosen fields.
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Monthly Archives: July 2012
Vector Aerospace Awarded Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A DOF for Asia Pacific
Toronto, ON Vector Aerospace (www.vectoraerospace.com); a leading provider of aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services announces its appointment as a Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) Designated Overhaul Facility (DOF) for the PW150A turboprop engine. Vectors new DOF will be established in the Asia-Pacific region, with the intent to have a fully operational MRO facility in place by mid-2013.
The addition of this new DOF to our existing engine capability portfolio, and our decision to establish an MRO facility in the Asia Pacific region truly adds to Vectors global presence and coverage, explains Vector Aerospace President and CEO, Declan OShea. The development of a Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A engine overhaul facility in this area creates considerable new opportunities for PW150A engine owners and operators throughout the Asia Pacific region to access our industry-proven services. Vector now has engine maintenance, repair and overhaul capabilities, including testing capability throughout North America, Europe, South Africa, as recently announced in 2012 in Australia, and now as early as 2013, in Asia Pacific. The strategic distribution of these customer-focused facilities means we are even closer to our customers, and enables us to focus on minimizing shipping costs and turn-around-times.
Over the course of our relationship, Vector has built a solid reputation for customer service, said Raffaele Virgili, Vice President, Customer Service at Pratt & Whitney Canada. Todays announcement is part of Pratt & Whitney Canadas continuing effort to enhance the support services we offer our engine customers.
With decades of success in supporting Pratt & Whitney Canada operators, both the Vector Aerospace Engine Services-Atlantic and Paris-based SECA, A Vector Aerospace Company, divisions have well-established reputations for meeting and often exceeding customer expectations related to engine performance, cost management, turn-times and warranty support. Brian Thompson, Senior Vice President Commercial, states that his companys focus on customer service and quality will prove to be highly sought after by operators in the competitive Asia Pacific market, and that Vectors establishment of a PW150A overhaul and testing facility in the region will provide operators of Bombardiers highly regarded Dash 8-Q400 series aircraft with a proven MRO alternative, while also assisting Vector in achieving strategic growth and market share expansion.
Vector Aerospace, with engine MRO facilities in Prince Edward Island & British Columbia (Canada), the United Kingdom, Africa and France, is a P&WC Designated Overhaul Facility supporting the following engines: Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A/PT6T /JT15D/ PW100/ PW305 / PW306 / PW307 / PW308.
Vector recently announced that it will add a DOF with full engine overhaul and test capability in Brisbane, Australia in support of the PT6A model engine in mid-2012.
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Vector Aerospace Awarded Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A DOF for Asia Pacific
B/E Aerospace Reports Record Second Quarter 2012 Results; Revenues, Operating Earnings, Net Earnings and EPS Were All …
WELLINGTON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
B/E Aerospace (BEAV), the world's leading manufacturer of aircraft cabin interior products and the world's leading distributor of aerospace fasteners and consumables, today announced second quarter 2012 financial results.
SECOND QUARTER 2012 HIGHLIGHTS VERSUS SECOND QUARTER PRIOR YEAR
SECOND QUARTER CONSOLIDATED RESULTS
Second quarter 2012 revenues of $768.1 million were a record for any quarter, and increased $159.2 million, or 26.1 percent, as compared with the same period of the prior year. Pro forma revenue growth, giving effect to all acquisitions completed during 2011 and 2012 as if they had occurred on January 1, 2011, was 17.6 percent.
Exclusive of items, second quarter 2012 operating earnings of $142.0 million increased 33.1 percent on the aforementioned 26.1 percent increase in revenues and operating margin of 18.5 percent expanded 100 basis points as compared with the prior year period, while net earnings and net earnings per diluted share were $74.0 million and $0.72 per share, respectively, increases of 35.0 percent and 33.3 percent, respectively, as compared with the second quarter of 2011.
Operating earnings growth and operating margin expansion were driven by the higher sales volume, improved revenue mix and ongoing operational efficiency initiatives.
Second quarter 2012 bookings were strong at approximately $770 million, and the book to bill ratio was 1 to 1. Backlog at June 30, 2012 was approximately $3.7 billion and total backlog, both booked and awarded but unbooked, was approximately $8.1 billion, an increase of approximately 25 percent versus June 30, 2011.
Commenting on the Company's second quarter 2012 performance, Amin J. Khoury, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of B/E Aerospace said, "Our strong revenue growth is being driven primarily by the robust new aircraft delivery cycle. Approximately 65 percent of second quarter bookings were driven by demand for products for new-buy aircraft, offsetting weaker aftermarket demand. Over the past three years the Company has been booking orders well in excess of the market growth rate and is now recording significant market share gains while delivering at a rate well above the market growth rate. Our record second quarter results included an operating margin of 18.5 percent, excluding items, an increase of 100 basis points as compared with the prior year period. The substantial margin expansion was driven by the 20 percent revenue growth in our higher margin distribution business and by margin improvements in our commercial aircraft and business jet segments which more than offset the margin drag from recent consumables management segment acquisitions and related integration costs."
SECOND QUARTER SEGMENT RESULTS
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BE Aerospace 2Q Results: Postgame Scorecard
Revenue growth helped BE Aerospace (BEAV) reap higher profit in the second quarter.
Earnings and Revenue
The company experienced stronger-than-expected EPS and revenues. The company reported EPS of 69 cents a share versus the 68 cents a share estimate and revenues of $768.1 million versus the $749.8 million estimate. The estimates of 15 analysts ranged from profit of 65 cents to profit of 71 cents.
The company's net income for the quarter was $72.1 million. This is 31.6% higher than the year-ago quarter. Revenue climbed 26.1% from $608.9 million in the same period last year.
Company Fundamental Trends
Last quarter marked the third in a row of rising net income. The company has averaged revenue growth of 25.2% over the past five quarters.
History Against Expectations
The company has now topped analyst estimates for at least the last four quarters. It beat by 8 cents in the first quarter, 4 cents in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year and 3 cents in the third quarter of the last fiscal year.
Official Comment:
Commenting on the Company's outlook, Mr. Khoury stated, "We are confirming our 2012 full year guidance of $2.75 per diluted share in spite of the approximately $0.13 per share interest expense drag on earnings resulting from our first quarter 2012 $500 million senior notes issuance. The third quarter of 2012 senior notes issuance and tender (exclusive of a one-time charge of approximately $0.55 per share for debt prepayment expense) is expected to be approximately neutral to 2012 EPS. The $2.75 EPS guidance represents earnings per share growth of approximately 23 percent (38 percent on a comparable interest expense and comparable tax rate basis). Our total backlog, both booked and awarded but unbooked, of approximately $8.1 billion, our expectation of significantly higher levels of wide-body aircraft deliveries, the expectation for continued growth in global passenger travel, and the attendant increases in capacity all provide a solid foundation for strong revenue and earnings growth."
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Scientists create artificial jellyfish from rat heart cells (+video)
Using rat heart muscle cells and a thin silicone film, researchers have constructed a swimming jellyfish like creature that can be used to study everything from marine biology to cardiac physiology.
Using rat heart cells and silicone polymer, researchers have bioengineered a "jellyfish" that knows how to swim.
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The odd jellyfish mimic, dubbed a "Medusoid" by its creators, is more than a curiosity. It's a natural biological pump, just like the human heart. That makes it a good model to use to study cardiac physiology, said study researcher Kevin Kit Parker, a bioengineer at Harvard University.
"The idea is to look at a muscular pump other than the heart or othermuscular organ and see if there are some fundamental similarities, ordesign principles, that are conserved across them," Parker told LiveScience. "This study revealedthat there are." [10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart]
Jellyfish propel themselves with a pumping action, as anyone who has ever watched them float around an aquarium tank can attest. Parker was looking for a way to tackle questions about the heart that aren't well understood when he saw some jellyfish in a display in 2007.
"I thought, 'I can build this,'" he said.
The ingredients were rat heart muscle cells and a thin silicone film. ("The world needs less rats and more jellyfish, so I thought it would be cool to do a one-for-one swap," Parker joked.) Along with researchers from the California Institute of Technology, he and his team engineered the cells and silicone in a pattern that mimicked the structure of a real jellyfish. They then stuck the creature in a tank full of electrically conducting fluid and zapped it with current.
The result was a swimming, pulsating creature that acts not unlike a real jellyfish (without the eating and reproducing, of course).
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Scientists create artificial jellyfish from rat heart cells (+video)
Cojuangco: Filipinos need proper nutrition to excel
MANILA, Philippines - Not until the Filipino athletes are given the proper nutrition, one that suits the needs for their respective sports, will they be able to compete to their full potential.
"I still maintain that our athletes could have been better prepared," said Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose Cojuangco who is bound for the London Olympics.
The POC chief will join the 11 Filipino athletes in London on Thursday together with POC chairman Monico Puentevella and secretary-general Steve Hontiveros.
Philippine Sports Commission chairman Richie Garcia will join the group of Filipino officials travelling to London for the Games scheduled from July 27 to Aug. 12.
Cojuangco is not giving up on the Filipino athletes in London, saying hes hoping for the best, and that he wouldnt be surprised if they manage to bring home a medal.
But he said with proper strength and conditioning, and proper nutrition, Filipino athletes will only be more prepared for international competitions.
Carlos Sumulong, a Filipino physical fitness expert now based in the United States, was in the country recently and together with his wife conducted a seminar for Filipino athletes, coaches and trainers.
They stressed the importance of nutrition and conditioning, and finding the best fighting weight for those competing in subjective and combat sports like boxing, taekwondo or judo.
"Athletes are often confused between strength and conditioning, and bodybuilding," said Sumulong.
For the ordinary athlete, building muscles mean building on strength, but the Filipino expert said its not always true, saying with added muscles, an athlete sometimes gives up a lot in strength and agility.
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Cojuangco: Filipinos need proper nutrition to excel
In Duke Biology Lab, NCCU Student Get A Chance to Set Goals
Story and Photos by Gabriel Aikens, NCCU Summer intern
The bubbling of reactions and the sight of stern-looking, goggle-wearing scientists with lab coats on the verge of discovering the next big cure is what goes on in Dukes biology labs, right? No, not at all.
Besides seeing lab coats and a variety of beakers, one might be surprised to also find people in hoodies or khaki shorts and sneakers listening to their favorite songs and joking with each other.
Morgan Morrison has been working with the plant Arabidopsis thaliana in the lab of Xinnian Dong in Duke Biology.
Dont be fooled by the relaxed environment however. These graduate and undergraduate students are hard at work, including intern Morgan Morrison, a North Carolina Central University senior from Charlotte interning at Dukes Institute of Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP) Summer Fellowship Program. Morrison and her colleagues spend their days transferring samples into geno-grinders (machines that grind plant tissue), carefully extracting chemicals with pipettes, and handling subzero nitrogen which sizzles and hisses loudly as samples are lowered into it..
Morrison was accepted into other summer internships but chose Dukes because of her interest in genomics and her attraction to the university.
This internship is offered to a select few students from around the nation to take on various projects. Morrison is undergoing two projects, observing plant-microbe interactions and cloning plants to study their transcription of genes.
Im observing the microbes (microscopic organisms) to find useful plant-derived compounds for combatting infections, says Morrison. Im cloning plants to see how resistant they are to a given disease.
Morrison is doing molecular cloning, which is different from making genetically identical copies like cloning in the movies. Molecular cloning is the engineering of transgenic plants, which are plants containing genes transferred from another species. The plant she works with is Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant thats a member of the mustard family.
To perform molecular cloning, she first identifies a protein of interest (POI) that might confer resistance to the Arabidopsis and then through a series of steps inserts the DNA coding sequence of that POI into the DNA of Arabidopsis. Then she conducts experiments test whether the new protein conferred resistance.
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In Duke Biology Lab, NCCU Student Get A Chance to Set Goals
Jacobs moves Ooh La La Spa to Glen Carbon
Practice outgrows Maryville location
Sometimes your lifes path takes you in an unexpected direction.
Such is the case for Dr. Kristen Jacobs, owner of Ooh La La Spa, Anti-Aging and Wellness.
Jacobs completed her residency at Southern Illinois University-Springfield and had been serving the Mount Vernon community as a family practice physician when she decided she wanted to try Botox.
She became educated in administering it and soon she was offering several other anti-aging procedures.
Fascinated with aesthetic medicine, Jacobs opened Ooh La La Spa, Anti-Aging and Wellness, a practice dedicated to patient health and cosmetic medicine, in Maryville.
Within four years her business had outgrown its Maryville location and Jacobs found a new home for Ooh La La at 110 Cottonwood Road in Glen Carbon.
Jacobs explained that the business just snowballed."
It started with Botox and then we did fillers and laser. Then we added chemical peels and facials, and its kind of grown from there which is awesome, she said.
All that growth prompted the recent move to Glen Carbon. Thankfully our business is building like crazy and we just needed the space, Jacobs said. Plus I live in Glen Carbon so I wanted to support the Glen Carbon community.
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Jacobs moves Ooh La La Spa to Glen Carbon
Israel ALS stem cell trials hopeful
2012-07-23 19:43
Tel Aviv - A clinical trial of ALS patients conducted by BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics shows its adult stem cell therapy is well-tolerated, appears to be safe and does not present undue risk, according to an interim safety review.
Moreover, in some patients signs of stabilisation of the disease were detected.
Israel-based BrainStorm is developing NurOwn for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
"It's very uncommon to give at such an early point in a clinical study efficacy data, but we cannot ignore the fact on an individual basis we could see improvement in many of the patients involved, each one in different areas," Moshe Neuman, CEO of Biomedical Research Design, which serves as a contract research organisation for the trial, said.
In some patients breathing improved, in others it was muscle strength and in others it was speech, he told Reuters.
Neuman said a final report was expected by the end of the year after each patient has been observed for nine months.
BrainStorm President Chaim Lebovits said the preliminary results demonstrate that the stem cells have the potential not only to stop deterioration but perhaps even cure ALS.
"The coming phases in the trial will have to prove this, but these results also reaffirm our belief that we have an enormous potential of being successful with less severe indications such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's," he said.
Patients in the trial were transplanted with stem cells derived from their own bone marrow and treated with the NurOwn stem cell technology.
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How Does Space Smell?
Astronauts who have gone on spacewalks consistently speak of space's extraordinarily peculiar odor.
They can't smell it while they're actually bobbing in it, because the interiors of their space suits just smell plastic-y. But upon stepping back into the space station and removing their helmets, they get a strong, distinctive whiff of the final frontier. The odor clings to their suit, helmet, gloves and tools.
Fugitives from the near-vacuum probably atomic oxygen, among other things the clinging particles have the acrid aroma of seared steak, hot metal and welding fumes. Steven Pearce, a chemist hired by NASA to recreate the space odor on Earth for astronaut training purposes,saidthe metallic aspect of the scent may come from high-energy vibrations of ions.
"It's like something I haven't ever smelled before, but I'll never forget it," NASA astronaut Kevin Ford said from orbit in 2009. [Space Sights and Smells Surprise Rookie Astronauts]
But astronauts don't dislike the sharp smell of space, necessarily. After a 2003 mission, astronaut Don Pettit described it this way on a NASA blog:
"It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as 'tastes like chicken.' The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space."
The interior of the International Space Station smells a little more mundane. Pettit, who recently returned from a second six-month-long mission on the ISS,told SPACE.com, "[The space station] smells like half machine-shop-engine-room-laboratory, and then when you're cooking dinner and you rip open a pouch of stew or something, you can smell a little roast beef."
Copyright 2012Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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An amazing video of nighttime views from the space station
Photographs taken from the International Space Station and assembled in this video show nighttime views of our planet.
People keep making these videos from ISS photography, and we keep loving them. Heres the latest, assembled by photographer Knate Myers to a track by John Murphy (from the movie soundtrack forSunshine) its a beautiful tour of nighttime passes of the Space Station over our planet. Stars, city lights, airglow, aurorae its nothing you havent seen before, but everything worth seeing again. Watch it.
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Video: Knate Myers. All images courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. Via the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
Jason Major is a graphic artist fromRhode Islandnow living and working inDallas, Texas. He writes about astronomy and space exploration on his blogLights In The Dark, on Universe Today and also onDiscoveryNews.
This story originally appeared inUniverse Today.
Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow@universetodayonTwitter
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Appreciation: Sally Ride, First American Woman in Space
An undated photo released by NASA shows astronaut Sally Ride. Ride, the first American woman in space, will be inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, hall officials announced Friday, Dec. 15, 2006.
NASA via AP
Here's how Sally Ride knew she was special: The day she was assigned to her first space flight, she was summoned to meet with Chris Kraft. Kraft was the soon-to-retire director of the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston. But that was just a title. Kraft was already as much NASA symbol as NASA official; he was the man who'd been choosing astronauts and managing missions since the days of Mercury. He was the man who made careers and, in the case of a few unfortunate astronauts who crossed him by fouling up in flight, the man who ended them. He scared the daylights out of any American who had any hope of flying in space.
Ride knew that she wasn't being called to see Kraft because she'd done something wrong. She was being called because she'd been chosen to be part of the crew of the space shuttle Challenger's June, 1983 mission making her the first American woman to fly in space, 20 years almost to the day after Russia's Valeltina Tereshkova became the first woman ever to do so.
(See pictures of Earth from space.)
"[Kraft] wanted to have a chat with me and make sure I knew what I was getting into before I went on the crew," Ride said. "I was so dazzled to be on the crew and go into space I remembered very little of what he said."
Ride, who died today at age 61 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, did not dazzle easily. She described her first view of Earth from orbit as "spectacular," a coin-of-the-realm adjective for astronauts. But beyond that, she kept things clinical, observational. Looking down at Earth from space was "a chance to see our planet as a planet," said the Stanford grad with the PhD in physics. She spoke not without appreciation for what she was given the opportunity to do, but with a scientist's conviction that that was an opportunity not to exult but to learn.
Ride flew a second time, in 1984, also aboard Challenger. It was thus fitting that she was named to the panel that investigated the death of her ship after it exploded during ascent in 1986. She was tapped again for mortician's duty in 2003, after Columbia disintegrated during reentry, and if that was more than even a scientist's heart could bear without cracking, she didn't say so. She left NASA in 1987 to return to Stanford and later to teach at the University of California, San Diego. In 2001, she founded Sally Ride Science, a company that developed science curricula for students.
Ride was not old enough to have applied for a spot at NASA in the days that women in the space community were either wives, daughters, groupies or spacesuit seamstresses. And that's a good thing, because the only way she could have made a mark in that world then would have been as a wife, daughter, groupie or seamstress. But she surely was old enough to understand the sting those woman felt; old enough to know that while the NASA of the 1950s made a pro forma gesture of considering female applicants for the astronaut corps, those same women were the object of eye-rolls at best, jokes or disdain at worst. Their applications were accepted simply as an act of bureaucratic box-checking.
By the mid 1970s that had changed just enough that Ride could apply to she shuttle program one of 8,000 astronaut candidates given consideration, By 1978, she was named part of an incoming astronaut class that included five other women and 29 men. They were referred to around NASA as "the 35 new guys," and if the six who didn't quite fit that description minded, they said nothing.
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NASA | Landsat – From the Archives – Video
23-07-2012 08:59 The Landsat program is the longest continuous global record of Earth observations from space -- ever. On July 23, 1972 NASA launched the first satellite in this program, then known as ERTS, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite and later renamed Landsat 1. In honor of today (Monday, July 23, 2012) being the 40th birthday of Landsat, NASA edited together selections of an archive video from 1973 about the ERTS launch. Featured in this 1973 video was a senior geologist at NASA, Nicholas Short, and at Dartmouth College, Robert Simpson and David Lindgren. NASA and the US Department of the Interior through the US Geological Survey (USGS) jointly manage Landsat, and the USGS preserves a 40-year archive of Landsat images that is freely available over the Internet. The next Landsat satellite, now known as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) and later to be called Landsat 8, is scheduled for launch in 2013. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: Or find us on Twitter:
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NASA Awards $331,000 Grant to Create Our Instrumented Earth, Debuting Summer 2013 in California at the Aquarium of the …
LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
NASA, Aquarium of the Pacific, and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), and NASA Goddard Visitor Center have partnered to create a new program for the public. Our Instrumented Earth is a new exhibit-based program that will debut at each of these institutions in 2013, serving communities in Maryland, California, and Oregon. It will focus on how satellites and other observing systems contribute to our understanding of how Earth is changing and what those changes may mean to humans, said Dr. Jerry Schubel, Aquarium of the Pacific president.
The program celebrates NASAs advances in technology and illuminates how information can be harnessed to increase understanding of Earths systems to enhance human lives and protect our planet. NASA awarded the Aquarium of the Pacific with a $331,000 grant to oversee the creation of the program in conjunction with NASAs Goddard Visitor Center and OMSI. Others involved in developing it include NASA, Jet Propulsion Lab, and University of California, Irvine.
The story of Our Instrumented Earth will be illustrated on a six-foot-diameter global display called NOAAs Science On a Sphere, combining NASA satellite images and multimedia technology. Visitors to the three institutions will be transported into space to see how NASA satellites help us prepare for changes on Earth. Informal education providers are an important part of NASAs education family, said Leland Melvin, associate administrator for NASAs Office of Education in Washington. By using compelling NASA content, they help us stimulate interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, Melvin said.
The NASA visitor center, the Southern California aquarium, and the Oregon museum will reach millions of individuals in diverse communities with science that relates to their everyday lives and can help with adapting to environmental changes. Presentations will be in English and Spanish. Science on a Sphere has been a star attraction since its arrival here, and we are excited to use this platform to tell such a compelling story, said David Perry, OMSI director of museum education.This collaborative project also targets underserved youth to promote STEM learning and increase careers in these fields.
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NASA opens Apollo launch site to the public
The NASA launch pad from which Apollo 11 lifted off for the first manned moon landing and Atlantis left Earth to fly the last space shuttle mission is now open to the public for tours.
Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida is the latest, limited-time tour stop being offered by the NASA spaceport's visitor complex. The tours which also include separate trips to KSC's 52-story tall Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and the Launch Control Center (LCC) are now being offered as part of the center's 50th anniversary celebration.
"These are very rare opportunities that NASA has worked with us to provide to our visitors from Florida, across the United States and overseas," Bill Moore, chief operating officer of NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, said in a statement. "With exciting new space exploration programs coming to the Kennedy Space Center, we may never have access to such historic places like this again."
Pad 39A was one of two large launch complexes built in the 1960s to support the Saturn V launches to the moon, Saturn IB launches to the Skylab space station and space shuttle launches to deploy and service satellites and build the International Space Station.
Pad 39A's twin, Pad 39B, was stripped of its iconic launch support towers last year to make way for possible future commercial and government launch vehicles. Pad 39A, which supported 92 launches since November 1967 12 Saturn V rockets and 80 shuttles is being maintained to support NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift next generation booster now being developed. [Giant Leaps: Biggest Moments in Spaceflight]
- Bill Moore, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex COO
The current downtime between launches has allowed the opportunity for the visitor complex to bring guests closer to the launch pad than ever before.
Past the perimeter
The new "KSC Up-Close: Launch Pad Tour" buses guests from the visitor complex to Pad 39A, following alongside the same river stone-lined "crawlerway" that rockets and shuttles once slowly rumbled across riding atop massive tank-like transporters. Previous bus tours drove this same path but then veered off to circle the security fence that surrounds the launch pad.
On the new tour, the guards stationed at the pad will wave the bus forward, permitting the tour to proceed almost a quarter-mile (400 meters) within the pad's perimeter.
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NASA experiment blows up in space, as intended
NASA successfully tested an inflatable heat shield Monday. The mushroom-shaped balloon inflated in orbit and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.
An experimentalheatshieldfor future spacecraft landings successfully survived a test launch Monday that brought it through the earth's atmosphere at speeds of up to 7,600 mph, NASA said.
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The demonstration launch from Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore involved a 680-pound cone of high-tech rings covered by a thermal blanket of layers of heat-resistant materials. The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment, or IRVE-3, was launched from a three-stage Black Brant rocket for a suborbital flight.
IRVE-3 separated from the launch vehicle about six minutes into the flight about 280 miles in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina.
An inflation system pumped nitrogen into IRVE-3 until it expanded to a mushroom shape almost 10 feet in diameter. Engineers in the Wallops control room watched as four onboard cameras confirmed the inflatableshieldheld its shape despite the force and highheatof re-entry, NASA said.
A high-speed Navy Stiletto boat based at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story was dispatched to retrieve the capsule.
The purpose of the launch was to determine whether a space capsule can use an inflatable outer shell to slow and protect itself as it enters an atmosphere at hypersonic speed during a planetary entry and descent.
"We're pushing the boundaries with this flight," said Lesa Roe, director of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton. "We look forward to future test launches of even bigger inflatable aeroshells."
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NASA launches hypersonic inflatable heat shield
NASA launched a novel new heat shield prototype on a successful test flight Monday (July 23), a mission that sent a high-tech space balloon streaking through Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 10.
The test flight blasted off atop a suborbital rocket at 7:01 a.m. EDT (1101 GMT) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. It sent a small capsule, called the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment 3 (IRVE-3) into suborbital space, which deployed the inflatable heat shield and then plunged back down through Earth's atmosphere to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.
The mission, according to NASA, was an unqualified success and will help shape new re-entry systems for future spacecraft.
"We had a really great flight today," James Reuther, deputy director of NASA's Space Technology Program, told reporters in a news briefing Monday (July 23). "Initial indications are we got good data. Everything performed as well, or better, than expected." [Photos: NASA's Inflatable Heat Shield Ideas for Spaceships]
The IRVE-3 flight was designed to demonstrate how the technology could be used for heat shields during atmospheric entries on future space missions.
The successful test flight is, "a first step for how we explore other worlds," said Steve Jurczyk, deputy director of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
"As far as the applicability of the technology, [we were] originally motivated to do this to allow us to potentially land more masses at Mars," said Neil Cheatwood, IRVE-3 principal investigator at Langley Research Center. "Mars is a very challenging destination. It has a very thin atmosphere too much of an atmosphere to ignore, but not enough for us to do the things we would at other planets. That was our motivation about nine years ago when we started doing this stuff."
With inflatable heat shields, scientists may be able to land at higher altitudes on Mars, or use the IRVE-3 technology to one day carry larger payloads, including humans, to the surface of the Red Planet, Cheatwood added.
The IRVE-3 heat shield is a cone made up of inflatable rings that are wrapped in layers of high-tech thermal blankets to protect it (and its space capsule) from the searing heat of re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. The 680-pound (308-kg) heat shield prototype was packed inside a 22-inch wide (56-centimeter) nose cone for the test flight. It expanded to a heat shield 10 feet (3 meters) across during the flight.
During the test, which was overseen by NASA's Langley Research Center, the IRVE-3 heat shield launched into space atop a Black Brant 4 rocket and separated from the booster six minutes later, about 280 miles (450 kilometers) above the Atlantic Ocean. IRVE-3 then inflated itself with nitrogen gas as expected, creating a mushroom-shaped heat shield known as an aeroshell.
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NASA tests inflatable heat shield
NASA's inflatable heat shield, which could someday be used to protect a large payload as it enters the atmosphere of Mars, performed as expected during a test Monday.
A prototype for a large inflatable heat shield that could one day be used for landing large payloads on Mars was tested successfully on July 23, 2012, surviving a hypersonic speeds through Earths atmosphere. The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) traveled at speeds up to 12,231 km/h (7,600 mph) after launching on a sounding rocket from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.
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We had a really great flight today, said James Reuther, deputy director of NASAs Space Technology Program, after the test flight. Initial indications are we got good data. Everything performed as well, or better, than expected.
Watch the video from the flight below.
IRVE-3 is a cone of uninflated high-tech rings covered by a thermal blanket of layers of heat resistant materials. NASA said the purpose of the IRVE-3 test was to show that a space capsule can use an inflatable outer shell to slow and protect itself as it enters an atmosphere at hypersonic speed during planetary entry and descent, or as it returns to Earth with cargo from the International Space Station. A larger version has been proposed for landing larger payloads on Mars, such as future human missions.
About 6 minutes into todays flight, as planned, the 680-pound inflatable aeroshell, or heat shield, and its payload separated from the launch vehicles 55 cm (22-inch)-diameter nose cone about 450 km (280 miles) over the Atlantic Ocean.
An inflation system pumped nitrogen into the IRVE-3 aeroshell until it expanded to a mushroom shape almost 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter. Then the aeroshell plummeted at hypersonic speeds through Earths atmosphere. Engineers in the Wallops control room watched as four onboard cameras confirmed the inflatable shield held its shape despite the force and high heat of reentry. Onboard instruments provided temperature and pressure data. Researchers will study that information to help develop future inflatable heat shield designs.
A Navy crew will attempt to retrieve the aeroshell.
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NASA tests inflatable heat shield (+video)
NASA's inflatable heat shield, which could someday be used to protect a large payload as it enters the atmosphere of Mars, performed as expected during a test Monday.
A prototype for a large inflatable heat shield that could one day be used for landing large payloads on Mars was tested successfully on July 23, 2012, surviving a hypersonic speeds through Earths atmosphere. The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) traveled at speeds up to 12,231 km/h (7,600 mph) after launching on a sounding rocket from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.
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We had a really great flight today, said James Reuther, deputy director of NASAs Space Technology Program, after the test flight. Initial indications are we got good data. Everything performed as well, or better, than expected.
Watch the video from the flight below.
IRVE-3 is a cone of uninflated high-tech rings covered by a thermal blanket of layers of heat resistant materials. NASA said the purpose of the IRVE-3 test was to show that a space capsule can use an inflatable outer shell to slow and protect itself as it enters an atmosphere at hypersonic speed during planetary entry and descent, or as it returns to Earth with cargo from the International Space Station. A larger version has been proposed for landing larger payloads on Mars, such as future human missions.
About 6 minutes into todays flight, as planned, the 680-pound inflatable aeroshell, or heat shield, and its payload separated from the launch vehicles 55 cm (22-inch)-diameter nose cone about 450 km (280 miles) over the Atlantic Ocean.
An inflation system pumped nitrogen into the IRVE-3 aeroshell until it expanded to a mushroom shape almost 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter. Then the aeroshell plummeted at hypersonic speeds through Earths atmosphere. Engineers in the Wallops control room watched as four onboard cameras confirmed the inflatable shield held its shape despite the force and high heat of reentry. Onboard instruments provided temperature and pressure data. Researchers will study that information to help develop future inflatable heat shield designs.
A Navy crew will attempt to retrieve the aeroshell.
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£1.2m EPSRC funding utilised in healthcare nanotechnology
23 July 2012 | By Sam Shead
Scientists at Nottingham University are using new funding to engineer nanotechnology that could transform the global healthcare industry.
EPSRC funding worth 1.2m will be used as part of a four-year project to develop new ways of manufacturing and scaling up the production of nanoparticles and nanocomposites to be used for drug delivery and bone tissue regeneration.
Prof Andrew Parsons from Nottingham Universitys faculty of engineering explained that nanocomposites provide a means of achieving significant improvements in mechanical properties over other materials that are currently being used in certain areas of healthcare.
We will be combining hydroxyapatite nanoplatelets with resorbable plastics to create implant materials that will be able to fix things such as fractures, said Parsons.
In this way healing can be achieved, followed by the gradual disappearance of the implant and as a result the patient can avoid the need for either a permanent metal implant or secondary surgery to remove the metal.
Nanocomposites are well suited to use in this way as the bones of the body are already natural hydroxyapatite nanocomposites, said Parsons.
Being mostly plastic, the implant should weigh less than current solutions and generate less interference with X-ray or MRI imaging or metal detectors in airports. Nor will it feel hot or cold in extremes of temperature, added Parsons.
Ideally we will have demonstrator components available by the end of the project that will be used to develop licence agreements with medical device manufacturers, said Parsons. This would begin the process of clinical trials, which can take many years to progress. Realistically, 2020 is the earliest such materials may be available for commercial use.
Several structures have been made so far but only on a lab scale. Parsons explained that he and his team will look into new methods that can be used for large-scale manufacture.
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