NASA celebrates 50 years of deep space exploration in Canberra

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NASA's top officials are in Canberra to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the space administration's Deep Space Network.

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) at Tidbinbilla is one of three sites worldwide that facilitate the communication between NASA and its craft, satellites and astronauts across the solar system.

Over the past 50 years, the network has coordinated and controlled hundreds of manned and un-manned ventures into space including the first manned mission to the moon in 1969, the first fly-by of Neptune in the 1980s, and the Curiosity Mars Rover mission in 2012.

The Tidbinbilla facility, hidden among the hills near Canberra, has three giant antennas- one 70 metre-wide dish and two that are 32 metres wide - that help to coordinate the dozens of NASA missions running at any one time.

CDSCC director Dr Ed Kruzins says the Canberra site has contributed strongly to NASA's missions.

"The DSN (Deep Space Network) ensures that the critical science obtained by robotic spacecraft in extreme environments at incredible distances makes it back home to Earth," he said.

"We are tremendously proud of our ongoing contribution to NASA's exploration of space and of the job done by our predecessors."

The site is run by the CSIRO on behalf of NASA.

Dr David Williams leads information science research at CSIRO and in the past has run both the United Kingdom Space Agency and the European Space Agency.

He says the facility is a crucial part of the Deep Space Network.

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NASA celebrates 50 years of deep space exploration in Canberra

NASA Announces Small Business Industry Awards

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NASA announced Tuesday the recipients of the agency's Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 Small Business Industry Awards (SBIA) program at its inaugural Industry Forum. More than 30 nominations were received from all NASA centers.

The SBIA program recognizes the outstanding efforts of companies that support NASA in achieving its mission. Award categories include: Small Business Prime Contractor, Small Business Subcontractor, and Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year.

Under the leadership of Glenn A. Delgado, associate administrator for the agency's Small Business Program, more than 130 companies have received these respected awards since the program,s inception in FY 2008.

The FY 2013 NASA Agency-Level SBIA winners are:

*Healtheon, Inc., New OrleansAgency Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year

*Houston Precision Fasteners, HoustonAgency Small Business Subcontractor of the Year

*Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc., Columbia, Md.Agency Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year

To learn more about NASA's FY 2013 SBIA winners and the Small Business Program at NASA, visit: http://www.osbp.nasa.gov

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NASA Announces Small Business Industry Awards

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Solar Orbiter Mission

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NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC of Centennial, Colo., to launch the Solar Orbiter Collaboration mission to study the sun in July 2017. The Solar Orbiter will launch on an Atlas V 411 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

The total cost for NASA to launch the Solar Orbiter is approximately $172.7 million, which includes the launch service, spacecraft processing, payload integration, tracking, data and telemetry and other launch support requirements.

The Solar Orbiter is a collaborative mission between the European Space Agency and NASA to study the sun and its outer atmosphere. The spacecraft will observe the sun's atmosphere with high spatial resolution lenses and combine these observations with measurements taken in the environment surrounding the orbiter. It also will provide images and data covering the sun's polar regions.

NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for management and oversight of the Atlas V launch services. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the program for the Heliophysics Division of the agency's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. United Launch Services operates as a subsidiary of United Launch Alliance.

For more information about NASA's Launch Services Program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/launchservices

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NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Solar Orbiter Mission

NASA sees some strength left in remnants of Tropical Cyclone Gillian

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5 hours ago by Hal Pierce TRMM passed above Gillian's remnants on Mar. 18, 2014, at 04:31 UTC and measured rain falling at a rate of over 86 mm/3.4 inches per hour in some intense storms. Credit: SSAI/NASA, Hal Pierce

NASA's TRMM satellite passed over the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Gillian and spotted some towering thunderstorms and areas of heavy rainfall, indicating there's still power in the former tropical storm.

Over the past few days former tropical cyclone Gillian's remnants moved from the Gulf of Carpentaria into the Timor Sea. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM found a few strong convective thunderstorms when it passed above these remnants on March 18, 2014 at 0431 UTC. TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) instrument measured rain falling at a rate of over 86 mm/3.4 inches per hour in some intense storms.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JWTC recently assigned Gillian's remnants a medium chance to regain tropical cyclone status. Asimulated 3-D image was made at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. using TRMM PR data. The 3-D image showed that several of the tallest thunderstorms in Gillian's remnants were reaching heights of over 15.75 km/9.8 miles. Radar reflectivity values of over 50.7 dBZ were being returned to TRMM from the heavy rainfall within these storms.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued their last statement on Gillian's remnants on March 18 at 10:45 p.m. CST local time/Darwin. At that time, Ex-Tropical Cyclone Gillian was located 9.6 south latitude and 128.4 east longitude, about 330 km/205.1 miles east southeast of Dili and 525 km/326.2 miles east of Kupang and moving west at 24 kph/38.6 mph.

Gillian's remnants, now in the Southern Indian Ocean basin, are expected to continue moving to the west across the Timor Sea, away from the Northern Territory.

Explore further: TRMM satellite eyeing Tropical Cyclone Gillian's rebirth

Heavy rainfall rates and powerful towering thunderstorms were spotted in what appeared to be the rebirth process of Tropical Cyclone Gillian in the Gulf of Carpentaria between Australia's Northern Territory ...

NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Gillian's remnants in the southern Arafura Sea today, as it passes north of Australia's "Top End."

NASA's TRMM satellite saw some towering thunderstorms in Tropical Cyclone Gillian before it made landfall over the Western Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia. Gillian has been staying over land ...

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NASA sees some strength left in remnants of Tropical Cyclone Gillian

Plant Nanobionics Shows Promise After Leaves Infused With Carbon Nanotubes Saw 30% Boost In Energy Production

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Carbon nanotubes are nano-sized cylinders of carbon atoms that are often found in carbon fiber products like baseball bats and golf clubs. After inserting carbon nanotubes coated in single-stranded DNA into the plants chloroplast, the centers of photosynthesis, researchers see a 30 percent increase in the plants ability to capture and convert light energy, they report. Chlorophyll, the pigment found in chloroplast that absorbs incoming sunlight, normally takes in just a small fraction of the light in the 400- to 500-nanometer and 600- to 700-nanometer range. The carbon nanotubes widened this range to allow the plants to absorb more light.

According to the MIT study, published in the journal Nature Materials, the process works by spurring the pigments in the plants to transfer electrons between multiple photosystems more efficiently.

This is a marvelous demonstration of how nanotechnology can be coupled with synthetic biology to modify and enhance the function of living organisms -- in this case, plants, James Collins, a professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University who was not involved in the research, said in a statement. The authors nicely show that self-assembling nanoparticles can be used to enhance the photosynthetic capacity of plants, as well as serve as plant-based biosensors and stress reducers.

Researchers from MIT utilized Arabidopsis thaliana,a type of cress thats often used in plant research, for their experiment. To see how the nanotubes affect photosynthesis, the team used a dye that changes color when electrons are absorbed. Photosynthesis produces these charged particles. The more photosynthesis that took place, the more dramatic the color of the dye became.

Plants are very attractive as a technology platform, Michael Strano, a professor of Chemical Engineering and lead author of the study, said in a statement. They repair themselves, theyre environmentally stable outside, they survive in harsh environments, and they provide their own power source and water distribution.

Scientists say improving a plants energy output has a variety of applications. Nanobionics could lead to self-powered pollution monitors and detectors for chemical weapons.

"Right now, almost no one is working in this emerging field," Juan Pablo Giraldo, a plant biologist and study author, said in a statement. "It's an opportunity for people from plant biology and the chemical engineering nanotechnology community to work together in an area that has a large potential."

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Plant Nanobionics Shows Promise After Leaves Infused With Carbon Nanotubes Saw 30% Boost In Energy Production

Upload my mind, live forever

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In 1971 George M. Martin, a biogerontoligist at the University of Washington, published biomedical literature postulating the theory that our mind, containing all of our lifes thoughts, memories, knowledge, experiences, likes and dislikes, and political persuasions would someday be copied, stored and transferred to other substrates. He also indicated that our lifetime memories could be digitally stored or transferred to another brain. In other words, our mind would no longer be confined to our physical body and using another vehicle such as intelligent computerized machines to carry the memory and history of our past, we could all live forever.

Googles director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil, predicted we will have the capabilities of uploading all the components of our brain to a computer by 2045. Maybe cryonics isnt such a far fetched idea after all. At least they preserved Einsteins brain.

Imagine what he could do with computers, calculators and telescopes available in the 21st century.

It is all well and good that we can live forever. Or is it? Will the process be controlled by government, and if so, which government agency in what nations of the world? And, who determines which memories will be imprinted on our computer chip of life? Who is going to edit or sterilize my history of life for their own personal or political purpose? And to the larger ethical and political question, what standard or criteria will be used to determine who qualifies for the monopolized mobilization of mechanical humans?

In this new world of a cloned civilization, will the wealthy control the process of uploading the mind to gain power to control and enslave the rest of us? And, since, the shift of the human spirit will be aimed toward corporate technology, what happens to the meaning of ethical symbols such as; the rod of Asclepius, caduceus or even the crucifix?

In the new environment of edited artificial intelligence, we also have to ask: how would the memories of Hitler, living forever in a bionic and indestructible body affect the rest of the world? Would the faith of the Dali Lama and principles of the old and New Testament unite the Arabs, Jews, Muslims and even the atheist in joint effort to conquer the evil of dictators, fascist and the Republican Guard? Will the end of the world as we know it be determined under the evil sign of Hitlers Swastika, which ironically means for the good, or the symbolic sign of the bloodshed experienced under the Popes and their sign of the cross of unification of all faiths? Either way, mankind as we know it loses.

Obviously, the terms consciousness, life, death and mortality will have a different meaning in the future when they upload our minds. Combined with the surroundings of artificial intelligence and our own immortality, humans will finally have the same capacity to travel and colonize the universe as our ancient ancestors had when they found this planet and left us here to enjoy the garden of life before we all evolved to their status of lifeless mechanical men.

David Farside is a Sparks resident and political activist.

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Upload my mind, live forever

GovWatch: Amtrak, porn on state computers and spending dimes to make nickels

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Amtrak has decided giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars in wine, cheese and champagne wasnt enough. The U.S. taxpayer-subsidized railroad is now giving free rides to itinerant writers.

Two dozen writers will be selected starting this month for the #AmtrakResidency program. Each will get a private sleeper car on a round-trip, long-distance route to work on their craft in an inspiring environment.

Writer Jessica Gross offered this advice to Amtraks blog: Dont be too ambitious with what you plan to get done: Allow for time spent gazing out the window, letting ideas work themselves out in your mind. Its that kind of deep thinking that the train is particularly good for, and that can be more difficult to achieve in the interstices of busy day-to-day life.

Amtrak asked for $2.6 billion in federal support this year, and has long struggled to turn a profit. An inspector generals report last year noted the system loses tens of millions of dollars a year on food and beverage service, including free food provided to passengers on some routes.

Sexy Babe on state computer

State officials quickly removed a pornographic video titled Sexy Babe that was found on an Ohio Department of Natural Resources website.

The Columbus Dispatch reported about the video after the newspaper was contacted by a reader. It was on a page where companies can upload large files such as maps that are used as data for tracking more than 100,000 wells permitted since 1980.

Turns out anyone could upload files to the site. In addition to two porn videos there were music files and other non-official-looking files, the Dispatch reported.

State officials took down the materials and began requiring credentials to upload stuff to the site, the newspaper reported.

Spending dimes to make nickels

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GovWatch: Amtrak, porn on state computers and spending dimes to make nickels