World Travel Market Latin America - Day 3 Highlights
Highlights from the third and final day of the World Travel Market Latin America in So Paulo, Brazil.
By: WTMLatinAmerica
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World Travel Market Latin America - Day 3 Highlights - Video
Dubai, May 6 -- Oman Air , the national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman, has been announced as the winner of the 'Middle East's Leading Airline Economy Class' category at the prestigious World Travel Awards 2013.
The awards, which recognise the commitment to excellence the airline has demonstrated over the last 12 months, are voted for by travel and tourism professionals worldwide. Oman Air 's Chief Executive Officer, Wayne Pearce, attended the spectacular ceremony held on Sunday 5th May at Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort and Spa in Dubai, where he was joined by many international leaders of the aviation industry, international media and a host of other VIPs. Wayne Pearce said: " Oman Air is honoured to have won the award in this highly competitive category, and against such worthy competitors on the eve of the launch of ATM 2013. "When Oman Air unveiled its new Airbus A330 Economy, Business and First Class cabins in 2009, we ensured that each cabin, including economy, offered fantastic comfort, space and in-flight entertainment, with audio video on demand and live satellite TV. These levels of comfort and amenity were mirrored aboard our fleet of Embraer E175 regional jets and are perfectly complemented by our medium-haul Boeing B737 economy class service. With delicious complimentary food and drinks served on board, we can ensure that all our economy class customers can simply sit back and enjoy their journey with Oman Air and make the most of the tremendous facilities available on board." Oman Air 's latest success continues its run of international industry award wins in recognition of the airline's many recent developments, including the introduction of new aircraft, the inauguration of a range of exciting new destinations, the unveiling of spacious and luxurious aircraft interiors - including its A330 business class seat, named as the World's Best at the Skytrax 2012 World Airline Awards - and the launch of state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment systems.
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Spirituality in Conne River - Mi #39;kmaq: First Nation people (5/6)
Free learning from The Open University http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/what-heritage/content-section-0 --- Many members of th...
By: OUlearn
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Spirituality in Conne River - Mi'kmaq: First Nation people (5/6) - Video
Maimouna Guerresi (left) and Mudra no.1, 2011 Mamouna Guerresi / TASVEER (Right)
Italian photographer, video artist and sculptor Maimouna Guerresi explores the feminine spirituality through her veiled figures, which in turn, represent the greater Indian spirituality. We catch up with her to know what inspires her.
What is the idea behind Inner Space? In the work for the 'Inner Space' exhibition, some figures do not have a precise religious identity, they could be Muslims or from any other religion. I am attracted to cultural hybridisation, contamination, and religious syncretism. I am more interested in the similarities rather than the differences between religions and traditional cultures, in an attempt to find a common thread that links them and provides the most value for each. As an artist, I am curious and I try to remain as objective as possible.
What made you select India as a culture or society to work with? My work on the subject of India is a continuation of my research regarding the mystic body. As such, much of this series is in fact an extension of my ideas on Giant Spirits, where I began working with Muslim African characters. Through my work, I try to interpret my visions and my imagination in a way that also relates to the real world. Mine is a mystic language, not a report or a chronicle, even though my subjects connect to themes of hard reality such as different religions and different cultures. What interests me most is to unarm peoples fears of the unknown, of that which is different, such things, I believe, are the main causes of both personal and social conflicts.
The images I present are timeless, rigorous, and classic. They do not depict ancient India or a new India in constant development. They are inner representations of a greater Indian spirituality. I hope my work is interpreted in the ecumenical spirit with which it was produced, that is, as a collection of values, cultures and religions coexisting within the Indian population, and that it evokes reflection beyond aesthetic pleasure.
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Summary: The International Space Station's laptops are moving from Windows to Linux, and R2, the first Linux-powered humanoid robot in space, is now under-going in-flight testing.
Unlike my recent spoof story about a Linux-powered Iron Man suitthat you could build at home, this story isn't science fiction. NASA really has decided to drop Windows from the laptops on the International Space Station (ISS) in favor of Linux, and the first humanoid robot in space, R2, really is powered by Linux.
Keith Chuvala, a United Space Alliancecontractor, manager of the Space Operations Computing (SpOC) for NASA, and leader of the ISS's Laptops and Network Integration Teams, recently explained that NASA had decided to move to Linuxfor the ISS's PCs."We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust, or adapt, we could."
Specifically, the ISS astronauts will be using computers running Debian 6. Earlier, some of the on-board computers had been using Scientific Linux, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone. While not the newest version of Debian, Debian 7 has just been released, Debian is nothing if not well-tested and reliable.
While Linux has been used on the ISS ever since its launch (PDF link) and for NASA ground operations almost since the day Linus Torvalds created it, it hasn't seen that much use on PCs in space. "Things really clicked," said Chuvalain an interview, "after we came to understand how Linux views the world, the interconnectedness of how one thing affects another. You need that worldview. I have quite a bit of Linux experience, but to see others who were really getting it, that was exciting."
In addition to appearing on in-flight laptops, Linux is also running Robonaut (R2), the first humanoid robot in space. Currently on the station and experimental mode, R2 is meant to carry out tasks too dangerous or tedious for astronauts.
To help astronauts and IT specialists get up to speed, NASA is relying on The Linux Foundation for training. As Chuvalaexplained, "NASA is as heterogeneous as it gets".
"They had a heavy Debian Linux deployment, but also various versions of RHEL/Centos. Because our training is flexible to a variety of distributions, we're able to address all those different environments in a single training session. No other training organization can provide that."
And, I might add, no other operating system is as flexible as Linux. From supercomputersto robots to desktops, NASA is finding that Linux is the answer.
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I dont know too much about the upcoming moving Elysium, but it looks pretty cool. Here is the trailer. The first interesting thing I saw was the rotating space station.
Why are you weightless in space? I have already answered this question in great detail. The short answer is that you dont really feel gravity anyway since it acts on all parts of your body equally and on the space station. Both the space station and all parts of your body have the same acceleration which means there is no interaction forces between them. What you actually feel is not the gravitational force, but rather the force that other objects push on you. On the surface of the Earth, you are mostly at rest. This means that the ground has to push up on you to balance the gravitational force and you feel weight.
Ok, Im not going to spend more time talking about weightlessness. If you arent happy with my short answer, read my other post. For now, lets say that you have a person in a space station. The space station could be in orbit around the Earth or in deep space where there are no strong gravitational forces. Either way, the person will be weightless.
How do you make a person feel weight? One way is to accelerate the person so that there is a force from the ground of the space station that is similar to Earth. Here is a force diagram of a person on the surface of the Earth and a person in the space station with fake gravity.
The person on the ground has the two forces that are equal in magnitude (thus no acceleration). I am calling FN the normal force. This is the force the person feels and calls weight. Now, we want the astronaut person to have this same FN force. Since there is no gravitational force, this one force would make the person accelerate in that same direction.
That is our fake gravity force make the person accelerate. There are two ways this person could accelerate in that direction. The person could increase in speed in that direction, this would be an acceleration. However, this would also change the velocity. For a station in orbit, this wouldnt work but it would be fine for a spaceship traveling to another star and accelerating. No, for the space station we need to do something else. The answer is to make the acceleration perpendicular to the velocity of the person so that the person moves in a circle.
When an object moves in a circle, the velocity vector is always changing and the direction of this change in velocity is towards the center of the circle. Acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity vector. Its really that simple. Here is how this would work.
And this is your basic spinning space station. You have seen this in countless space movies because it is an idea that would actually work. How do you change the acceleration of the object moving in a circle? There are two things to change, the radius of the circle and the speed that you move in a circle. The magnitude of this acceleration is:
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NASA Captures Phytoplankton in Bay of Biscay
NASA captures beautiful phytoplankton in Bay of Biscay. NASA has gifted us with exceptional images from our planet and elsewhere. On April 20, 2013, an image...
By: GeoBeatsNews
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Saturn Hurricane Near North Pole 2013 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Cassini Saturn Orbiter
more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/ "NASA Probe Gets Close Views of Large Saturn Hurricane NASA #39;s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the f...
By: Jeff Quitney
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Saturn Hurricane Near North Pole 2013 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Cassini Saturn Orbiter - Video
NASA EDGE Solar Max-Storm Warning
NASA EDGE presents highlights from their Live Coverage of this year #39;s celebration, Sun-Earth Days: Solar Max-Storm Warning.
By: NASAedge
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Garver Tours Gulf Region NASA Facilities on This Week @ NASA
During a recent visit to the Gulf Coast region, Deputy Administrator Lori Garver toured two NASA facilities that are key to development of the new Space Laun...
By: NASAtelevision
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Garver Tours Gulf Region NASA Facilities on This Week @ NASA - Video
NASA Wins Shorty Award
NASA GETS SHORTY -- HQ. NASA #39;s official Twitter feed, @NASA, has won its second consecutive Shorty award for the best government use of social media. The Sh...
By: okrajoe
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2014 NASA Budget Briefing
2014 NASA BUDGET BRIEFED-- HQ. Administrator Charles Bolden, along with Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson and Associate...
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Former NASA contractor accused of lying to feds speaks with WAVY.com
Former NASA contractor accused of lying to feds speaks with WAVY.com.
By: wavy
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Former NASA contractor accused of lying to feds speaks with WAVY.com - Video
Speaking at the Human to Mars Summit, NASA's top administrator, Charles Bolden, pledges to work to "prevent an asteroid from colliding with devastating force into our planet."
NASA is planning an expedition to capture an asteroid.
Shortly after a large meteor hit Russia in February, injuring about 1,000 people, President Obama's administration announced that the U.S. would work on asteroid tracking technology to avoid potentially more severe Earth collisions. On Monday, top NASA administrator Charles Bolden reiterated this pledge.
Bolden spoke at the Human to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. on Monday and said that a robotic spacecraft mission currently being planned will "prepare efforts to prevent an asteroid from colliding with devastating force into our planet,"according to U.S. News & World Report.
The government's plan is surprisingly similar to the premise of the 1998 film "Armageddon," but in the real-life scenario the U.S. space agency plans to lasso a small asteroid and tow it close enough to Earth so that it can be visited by astronauts. The astronauts then will collect samples and conduct research that could one day assist in a mission to Mars or save Earth from a catastrophic collision.
While NASA deemed Earth safe from having the massive 22 million ton asteroid Apophis smash into the planet in 2036, it didn't rule out other smaller rocks from hurtling toward the planet. NASA's science mission directorate associate administrator John Grunsfeld also spoke about the importance of the lasso mission at the Human to Mars Summit on Monday, according to U.S. News & World Report.
"We have a pretty good theory that single-planet species don't survive," he said. "We don't want to test it, but we have some evidence of that happening 65 million years ago [when an asteroid killed much of Earth's life]. That will happen again someday ... we want to have the capability [to leave the planet] in case of the threat of large scale destruction on Earth."
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NASA's asteroid lasso mission said to halt Apocalypse scenario
Setting foot on Mars by the 2030s is human destiny and a US priority, and every dollar available must be spent on bridging gaps in knowledge on how to get there, NASA's chief says.
Addressing a conference of space experts at George Washington University, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that despite hard economic times the United States is committed to breaking new boundaries in space exploration.
'A human mission to Mars is today the ultimate destination in our solar system for humanity, and it is a priority for NASA. Our entire exploration program is aligned to support this goal,' Bolden said.
President Barack Obama has proposed a $17.7 billion dollar budget for NASA in 2014, and he supports a 'vibrant and coordinated strategy for Mars exploration,' Bolden said.
Among the first steps to sending astronauts to Mars are NASA's plans to capture and relocate an asteroid by 2025, a process that should inform future efforts to send humans into deep space, the former astronaut said.
Also, US astronaut Scott Kelly has volunteered to spend one year at the International Space Station in 2015 to allow doctors to assess how long-duration zero gravity exposure affects bone density, muscle mass and vision.
Currently, a rotating cast of global astronauts each spend a maximum of six months aboard the orbiting outpost.
But despite increasing interest in landing on Mars, and a newly diverse space race that involves many countries instead just of old Cold War foes the United States and Russia, there is plenty that experts just do not know about how to reach Mars.
For instance, there is no existing space vehicle to carry people on the seven-month or longer journey there, not to mention no plan for returning people to Earth.
Medical experts are unsure what the physical ramifications would be for people who attempt to travel in high-radiation environments for such extended periods.
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Mars (Credit: NASA via Hubble Space Telescope)
A manned mission to Mars will take place in the next 20 years, according to NASA and industry experts. At the Humans to Mars (H2M) summit at George Washington University this week, NASA staffers, researchers, private space agencies, and others are exploring the practicalities of sending astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.
A human mission to Mars is a priority NASA chief Charles Bolden said Monday, though he admitted the agency can't do it alone. Budgetary limitations, he argued, mean private and government agencies will have to effectively pool resources.
Bolden admitted a manned mission faces "tough logistical and political issues," reports The Washington Post. NASA doesnt have the capability to do that right now. But were on a path to be able to do it in the 2030s," he said, warning that without commercial funding "we will not get to Mars in our lifetimes."
His strategy is to leave escaping Earths gravity well to private contractors, suggesting that modules like SpaceX's Dragon could be used for getting to low-orbit from Earth. From there, NASA would work on taking the eventual crew the rest of the way to Mars.
H2M, run by the non-profit Explore Mars, Inc., is co-sponsored by aerospace companies including Boeing and Lockheed Martin. No one knows just how much a human mission to Mars would cost, but the logistics of landing humans on Mars -- and potentially also landing a return rocket and fuel should they want to leave -- will certainly necessitate additional private investment.
Chris Carberry, executive director of Explore Mars says that if given the resources, NASA could pull off a manned Mars mission. "The question is whether we have the political will to do it. Its more of a policy issue.
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An artist's impression of Curiosity at work on Mars. Photo: NASA
Is NASA going to send astronauts to Mars?
That's the agency's stated goal, though there's no mission yet, certainly no budget (it would probably give legislators the jitters) and, at the moment, NASA doesn't have the technology to land astronauts safely and then bring them back to Earth.
So humans to Mars is aspirational, with the tough logistical and political issues yet to be resolved.
"We're on a path to be able to do it in the 2030s": NASA administrator Charles Bolden. Photo: Getty Images/AFP
Amplification of NASA's long-term Mars strategy came on Monday at the start of a three-day conference at George Washington University in Washington called the Humans to Mars Summit, or H2M.
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NASA administrator Charles Bolden was the keynote speaker and he was soon followed by senior agency officials who have Mars on the mind.
All expressed cautious optimism that the agency is on the right path to get to Mars eventually, though some members of the audience were openly impatient and more than a little dismissive of NASA's current plan to send astronauts on a mission to inspect a lassoed asteroid.
After three senior NASA officials - William Gerstenmaier, John Grunsfeld and Michael Gazarik, the associate administrators for human exploration, science and space technology, respectively - talked extensively of the asteroid mission, an audience member took a microphone and expressed exasperation that they were so focused on the asteroid rather than Mars.
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U.S. small businesses may be headed to Mars literally.
Last week, NASA announced the 14 winning proposals from U.S. small businesses and teams at research institutions for contracts totaling $9.8 million. The U.S. space agency says the funding will allow the small business recipients to continue working on innovative, high-tech projects needed for future space missions.
The program is called Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) named for the way small businesses facilitate the transfer of ideas from research institutions and universities and turn them into viable technologies.
What we hope to see is ideas at the cutting edge at the lab pulled out more rapidly, thanks to a project associated with government needs, says Rich Leshner, program executive for the SBIR/STTR Program at NASA.
Leshner says STTR and its sister program, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which funds small business research and development, benefits NASA in terms of the level of innovation and creativity that small businesses bring to the table.
NASA 2013 Picks for Innovation Funding
HJ Sciences and TechnologyFunding: $700,000 contract pending
Its basically a lab on a robot platform, says HJ Sciences and Technology CEO Hong Jiao, who works with a team at the University of Texas.
The technology Jiao is referring to will allow a microchip on a robot to quickly process samples on Mars as if it were in an actual lab. This would help scientists figure out whether there is organic matter on Mars, indicating there may have been life on the planet.
Right now, we dont do very sophisticated chemistry up there. Were essentially using the same technology from the first time NASA sent anything to Mars in the 1970s, says Jiao.
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NASA is sorting through a variety of possible uses for a pair of powerful spy satellite telescopes that fell into the agency's lap last year.
In November, NASA asked scientists to suggest missions for the telescopes, which were donated by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and are comparable in size and appearance to the famous Hubble Space Telescope.
More than 60 serious proposals came flooding in, the most promising of which were presented in early February at the Study on Applications of Large Space Optics (SALSO) workshop in Huntsville, Ala. [Declassified U.S. Spy Satellites (Gallery)]
"There was a lot of excitement in the scientific community when these were transferred to NASA, because they are world-class, Hubble-class telescopes, optics," said SALSO project manager George Fletcher, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
The two scopes were originallybuilt to carry out surveillance missions under a multibillion-dollar NRO program called Future Imagery Architecture. But cost overruns and delays killed the program in 2005, and NASA announced in June 2012 that the NRO had bequeathed the instruments to the space agency.
While the telescopes' 8-foot-wide (2.4 meters) main mirrors are comparable to that of Hubble, the NRO instruments are designed to have a much wider field of view, NASA officials have said.
Seven big ideas
The ideas presented at the SALSO workshop fall into seven broad categories, meeting organizers and a technical review team determined:
The SALSO workshop did not look into another possible use incorporating one of the NRO scopes into NASA's proposed $1.5 billion Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, a high-priority mission that would hunt for exoplanets and probe the mysteries of dark energy because a separate research team is already investigating this possibility.
The results of that second study, known as AFTA (Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets), are expected any day now. Once AFTA is done, a more serious examination of the ideas presented at SALSO can begin.
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WASHINGTON If NASA is to land humans on Mars by the 2030s, as President Barack Obama has directed, there's not much time to settle on a plan and develop the technologies required, agency officials said Monday (May 6).
In the 1960s, America seized an opportunity to go to the moon, and succeeded. A second opportunity for a leap forward in space is upon us now, said NASA chief Charles Bolden at the Humans 2 Mars Summit here at George Washington University.
"Interest in sending humans to Mars I think has never been higher," Bolden said. "We now stand on the precipice of a second opportunity to press forward to what I think is man's destiny to step onto another planet." [Buzz Aldrin's Visions for Mars Missions & More (Video)]
Yet the road to Mars is long and challenging, and the difficulties are scientific, technological, political and economic, experts said.
Of launches and landings
Sending astronauts to the Red Planet will likely require at least three missions: one to launch the crew and the vehicle that will take them to Mars, one to launch the habitat humans will live on at the planet's surface, and one to launch the vehicle that will lift off from Mars to take the crew home, said Doug Cooke, a former NASA associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate who now heads a space consulting firm.
Overall, about 200 to 400 metric tons of equipment will have to be launched from Earth's surface for the project a mass roughly equivalent to that of the International Space Station. And about 40 metric tons of that mass will have to be delivered to the surface of Mars at one time. So far, NASA has been able to land only 1 metric ton at a time a feat recently accomplished in nail-biting fashion when the agency landed the Curiosity rover last summer.
While this phase, called Mars entry, descent and landing, will be one of the most challenging elements of the mission, at least as difficult is the return, when the astronauts will have to lift off from the surface of Mars and travel home. [Missions to Mars: Robotic Invasion of Red Planet (Infographic)]
"To me this is one of the biggest challenges," said Mike Raftery, director of space station utilization and exploration at Boeing, the primary contractor for NASA's heavy-lift rocket being developed to go to Mars. "We have to essentially land a launch pad on the surface that's then ready to launch the crew back to Earth."
Living off the land
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