Shen Yun ‘Reality mixed with spirituality’

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Mr. Roy Bohrer attends Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Long Center for Performing Arts, in Austin, on April 11. He said Shen Yun "Presented a rich history."(Lily Setoh/The Epoch Times)

AUSTIN, TexasIt was reality mixed with spirituality and fantasy to some extent. All of that mixed together, said Mr. Roy Bohrer after seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Long Center for Performing Arts in Austin Thursday night.

Before retiring, Mr. Bohrer served as the executive director of several professional non-profit associations in Austin, from sectors ranging from roofing contractors to speech pathologists to criminal justice.

Mr. Bohrer said watching New York-based Shen Yuns performance gave him a better understanding of traditional Chinese culture. He was touched by the spirituality of the culture that came through the performances and found it meaningful.

I have not seen a performance like this. I have not seen this before nor anything like it, Mr. Bohrer said.

Classical Chinese dance and ethnic and folk dances bring the audience from region to region of China, showing many of the 55 ethnicities throughout the country. In addition, stories are depicted through dance from every time period.

Through music and dance, Shen Yun seeks to revive the Chinese peoples belief in virtue and faith in the divine, which is the heart and soul of the culture, according to its website.

I thought it was really nice, really really nice. It was beautiful, it was inspiring, meaningful, all of those things, Mr. Bohrer said.

Another audience member touched by the revival of the divinely inspired culture was Ms. Anita Dodio, a senior software manager in Austin.

I think its something thats unique, Ms. Dodio said. It is something you feel, at heart. Its not simple entertainment.

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Shen Yun ‘Reality mixed with spirituality’

We've Taken More Than a Million Pictures of Earth From the Space Station

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All the images ever taken from the ISS, mapped. Click to enlarge. (Nathan Bergey/Github)

The official purpose of the International Space Station is Science: Astronauts living on the orbital laboratory spend the majority of their time in space testing microgravity's effect on physical objects, fellow animals, and themselves. The less-official purpose of the International Space Station, however, is Wonder. That there are, at this very moment, six human beings hanging out in space is a source of delight and maybe even inspiration to many of us here on Earth. And the fortunate few who get to do the hanging out take advantage of their vaunted environs, spending a good deal of their free time on the ISS taking pictures of the planetary scenery that spreads out 200 miles below them.

And I really do mean "a good deal of time." Since astronauts first took up residence there in 2000, they have snapped more than a million pictures from the station. That's nearly 30,000 images per Expedition.

And nearly all of those images have been archived on NASA's servers -- and, by default, are in the public domain. So the techologistNathan Bergeydid something great: He took NASA's data set and plotted the earth-based coordinates of the images taken from space. What resulted are graphics that double as hauntingly ethereal maps of the planet. Bergey archived only images that he found in NASA's database and that had a known latitude and longitude. So, he notes, "it's not necessarily every single image ever taken, but it's close."

As you can see from the red-and-white image above -- which represents all the Earth images taken from space, in the aggregate -- astronauts tend to focus their lenses on land. (Which makes sense, Bergey says: "Photos of clouds over an otherwise blank ocean get old after a while.")

What's less evident, though, is who is responsible for which photos. Since NASA's dataset included information about photos' Expeditions-of-origin, Bergey created individual maps for each expedition.

Here are the first nine Expeditions:

And the next:

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We've Taken More Than a Million Pictures of Earth From the Space Station

Orbital Sciences Corporation: Satellites, Rockets and the Space Station

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Artist's rendering of Cygnus spacecraft approaching the International Space Station. CREDIT: Orbital Sciences Corporation

Orbital Sciences Corp. is one of two private companies that currently hold a contract with NASA to fly unmanned cargo missions to the International Space Station.

The Dulles, Va.-based company's $1.9 billion deal with the space agency requires Orbital to fly eight unmanned cargo missions to the International Space Station using its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule.

Orbital specialized in launching small satellites for much of the company's history. Recently, the firm has become involved in the manufacturing of missile defense systems. In total, the company has built more than 560 launch vehicles and more than 170 satellites.

Orbital's formal relationship with NASA began in 1983 when the firm signed an agreement to build a Transfer Orbit Stage vehicle that was eventually used during a launch of the space shuttle Discovery. [See Photos of Orbital Sciences' Cygnus and Antares]

By 1991, officials from Orbital signed an $80 million deal allowing NASA to use the company's Pegasus rocket to deliver small payloads into orbit. Pegasus a winged three-stage rocket designed to fly to low-Earth orbit was the first privately developed space launch vehicle.

In the past, the aerospace firm has also signed deals with the U.S. Air Force, Japan's Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Cygnus space capsule

Orbital's unmanned Cygnus spacecraft is designed to deliver pressurized crew supplies, scientific experiments and other unpressurized cargo to the space station.

The capsule is currently being built and is scheduled for its first test flight atop the company's Antares rocket in November 2013.

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Orbital Sciences Corporation: Satellites, Rockets and the Space Station

NASA TV Provides Coverage of Space Station Spacewalk

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WASHINGTON -- Two members of the Expedition 35 crew will venture outside the International Space Station April 19 for a six-hour spacewalk to deploy and retrieve several science experiments and install a new navigational aid.

NASA Television will broadcast the spacewalk live beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT. Russian flight engineers Pavel Vinogradov and Roman Romanenko will open the hatch to the Pirs airlock and docking compartment to start the spacewalk at 10:06 a.m.

The spacewalkers' first task will be to install the Obstanovka experiment on the station's Zvezda service module. Obstanovka will study plasma waves and the effect of space weather on Earth's ionosphere.

They will retrieve the Biorisk experiment, which studied the effect of microbes on spacecraft structures. If time permits, they also will retrieve one section of the Vinoslivost experiment, which exposed materials samples to space.

While at the far end of Zvezda, Vinogradov and Romanenko will replace a faulty retro-reflector device, one of a suite of navigational aids that will provide assistance to the European Space Agency's Albert Einstein Automated Transfer Vehicle 4 cargo ship during its final approach for an automated docking to the space station in June.

This spacewalk will be the 167th in support of space station assembly and maintenance, the seventh for Vinogradov and the first for Romanenko. Both spacewalkers will wear spacesuits marked by blue stripes. Romanenko's suit will be equipped with a helmet camera to provide close up views of the spacewalk activity as it progresses.

This is the first of as many as six Russian spacewalks planned for this year. Two U.S. spacewalks are scheduled in July.

For NASA TV schedule and video streaming information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information on the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

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NASA’s X-48C Advances Cleaner, Quieter Airliner Design

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April 13, 2013

The X-48C, transformed from the X-48B, taking its first flight over the Mojave Desert in California. Image Credit: NASA / Carla Thomas

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

Tuesdays flight of NASAs remotely-piloted X-48C aircraft successfully concluded an eight month research campaign designed to demonstrate technological concepts for cleaner, quieter commercial air travel, the US space agency announced on Saturday.

The first flight of the Boeing-designed X-48 hybrid-wing-body subscale aircrafts C model took place at Edwards Air Force Base in California on August 7. The April 9 flight was the 30th and final one for the manta ray-shaped scale-model vehicle, ending what NASA officials have dubbed a productive research project.

We have accomplished our goals of establishing a ground-to-flight database, and proving the low speed controllability of the concept throughout the flight envelope, Fay Collier, manager of the NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project, said in a statement. Very quiet and efficient, the hybrid wing body has shown promise for meeting all of NASAs environmental goals for future aircraft designs.

The X-48C, which was built by a UK company known as Cranfield Aerospace Limited, is a modified version of the X-48B blended-wing-body aircraft that was redesigned to evaluate both the low-speed stability and control of a low-noise hybrid-wing-body design.

The new design includes a flattened, tailless fuselage that has the engine mounted atop the rear part of the aircrafts main body a layout inspired by concept studies NASA claims are currently being tested by the ERA Project and could actually be airborne within two decades time.

In most ways, the X-48C retains the dimensions of its predecessor, officials from the space agency said. The vehicles wingspan is slightly over 20 feet and it weighs approximately 500 pounds, but unlike the B-model, the C has been altered to have an airframe noise-shielding configuration.

In addition, the wingtip winglets were relocated from the B to the C. They were moved inboard next to the engine, essentially turning them into twin tails. Furthermore, the aircrafts rear deck was lengthened by about two feet and the Bs three 50-pound thrust jet engines were replaced with a pair of 89-pound thrust engines giving the C an estimated top speed of 140 mph and a maximum altitude of 10,000 feet.

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NASA’s X-48C Advances Cleaner, Quieter Airliner Design

NASA Needs Help to Hunt City-Destroying Asteroids, Congress Says

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It is time for the private sector to aid in the search for potentially city-destroying asteroids and meteors, lawmakers said during a hearing Wednesday (April 10).

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology made the call while hearing from NASA scientists and private-sector asteroid hunters during a hearing entitled "Threats from Space," with both groups agreeing that something more needs to be done.

"Detecting asteroids should not be the primary mission of NASA," Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said at the hearing. "No doubt the private sector will play an important role as well. We must better recognize what the private sector can do to aid our efforts to protect the world." [Meteor Streaks over Russia, Explodes (Photos)]

The meeting Wednesday was the second of three aimed at understanding the threat to Earth posed by asteroids in space. The first hearing took place in late March, and addressed the ways governmental entities, like NASA and the Air Force, are mitigating the risks posed by close-flying space rocks. The meetings were scheduled in response to a surprise meteor explosion over Russia and the close flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 both of which occurred on Feb. 15.

Astronomers have mapped the orbits of more than 90 percent of the potentially world-ending asteroids in close proximity to the Earth; however, tracking anything smaller than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) in diameter is more difficult, said Ed Lu, the CEO of the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit organization in the early stages of building a near-Earth-object-hunting space telescope scheduled for launch in 2018.

"NASA has not even come close to finding and tracking the 1 million smaller asteroids that might only just wipe out a city, or perhaps collapse the world economy if they hit in the wrong place," Lu said at the hearing.

B612's space telescope, dubbed Sentinel, will be built to aid in the search for smaller asteroids near Earth. Less than 10 percent of asteroids measuring around 459 feet (140 meters) in diameter have been found, while only 1 percent of all asteroids measuring around 131 feet (40 meters) or "city killer" range have been tracked, Lu said.

These city-destroying asteroids are notoriously difficult to track with the ground-based methods used by NASA today because the space rocks are relatively small and dark, said Don Yeomans, the head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program.

"A dramatic increase in near-Earth asteroid-discovery efficiencies is achievable using space-based infrared telescopes," Yeomans said at the hearing.

Searching for space rocks in infrared light as the $240 million Sentinel is expected to do could allow astronomers to find a larger number of smaller objects that are too dark to be seen in visible light, Yeomans said.

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NASA spacecraft may have spotted pieces of Soviet spacecraft on Mars

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The bright spot in this 2007 image taken by NASA's Mars Orbiter spacecraft may be the parachute from a 1971 Soviet mission that soft landed a spacecraft on the Red Planet. Credit: NASA JPL/University of Arizona

MOSCOW, April 12 (UPI) -- Russian space enthusiasts say a NASA orbiter may have captured images of pieces of a Soviet spacecraft that made a soft landing on Mars more than 40 years ago.

They say the evidence of the Mars 3 mission, the first successful soft landing on the Red Planet, is in images taken in 2007 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA reported their claims Friday.

"While following news about Mars and NASA's Curiosity rover, Russian citizen enthusiasts found four features in a 5-year-old image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that resemble four pieces of hardware from the Soviet Mars 3 mission: the parachute, heat shield, terminal retrorocket and lander," the space agency said.

The Soviet space mission made a soft landing on Mars Dec. 2, 1971, and sent data back to Earth for 14.5 seconds before the transmissions stopped abruptly, RIA Novosti reported.

Russian space follower Vitali Egorov saw an image taken by NASA's orbiter of the crater where Mars 3 was believed to have landed, and recruited members of an online community that follows NASA's Curiosity rover to look for objects in the image that matched the Mars 3 equipment.

Alfred McEwen, principal investigator of the University of Arizona's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on the orbiter, was asked to analyze a follow-up image of Mars 3's landing site, and said the objects identified by the Russians could be the real thing.

"The parachute, which is seen as an especially bright spot, was the most distinctive and unusual feature in the images," he told RIA Novosti.

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NASA's Monster Mars Rocket Ahead of Schedule

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The development of NASA's biggest, most powerful rocket yet is running ahead of schedule and on budget, its primary contractor said Wednesday (April 10).

The towering Space Launch System (SLS) is a 384-foot (117 meters) behemoth intended to launch astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to deep-space asteroids and Mars. The vehicle is slated to make its first test flight in 2017, when it will launch an unmanned Orion capsule (also in development) beyond the moon. The first manned flight is pegged for 2021.

So far, NASA and The Boeing Co., which has been contracted to build the rocket's core stage, are on track to meet that date, officials said.

PHOTOS: NASA's Asteroid Capture Mission

"We're on budget, ahead of schedule," John Elbon, Boeing's vice president and general manager of space exploration, told reporters here at the 29th annual National Space Symposium. "There's incredible progress going on with that rocket."

At the end of December 2012 -- five months ahead of schedule -- the team passed a milestone called preliminary design review, which certified that the rocket design meets its requirements within acceptable risk parameters. Its final technical review, called critical design review, is scheduled for 2014.

The booster, in its initial configuration, uses solid rocket boosters based on the space shuttle's design, with an upper stage taken from United Launch Alliance's well-tried Delta 4 rocket.

NEWS: Monster Rocket To Travel to Mars

"The whole theory of it was to use existing hardware so we could design something relatively low-risk and get a capability soon," Elbon said.

Eventually, the SLS will have to be outfitted to carry heavier loads than its initial configuration can lift. It must carry the crew and equipment needed for a mission to Mars -- which will be a multistep, complex operation. What those steps will be, exactly, is yet to be settled by NASA.

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NASA's Monster Mars Rocket Ahead of Schedule

NASA's next step: Send people to a moon base or an asteroid?

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NASA and lawmakers disagree over the future of human spaceflight. NASA has its sights set on an asteroid landing, while legislators want a permanent moon base.

While NASA's proposed budget for 2014 unveiled this week reaffirms the space agency's ambitious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid, some members of Congress are pushing for a more familiar goal: a moon base by 2022.

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President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a bold plan topark an asteroid near the moon. Astronauts would then explore the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, with the first visit perhaps coming as early as 2021.

The proposed "Asteroid Initiative" lines up with the manned spaceflight priorities of the Obama Administration, which three years ago cancelled NASA's moon-oriented Constellation program and directed the agency to get astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

But some lawmakers contend thatthe moonshould still be NASA's immediate human spaceflight target. They have reintroduced a 2011 bill called the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act (or REAL Space Act for short), which asks NASA to send astronauts to the moon by 2022 with the goal of establishing a long-term settlement there.

"The moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach," Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) said in a statement Wednesday. "In order to explore deeper into space to Mars and beyond a moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface."

The bill would also give NASA's manned spaceflight efforts more direction, its sponsors say.

"This legislation is not just about landing another human on the moon. It is about restoring our nations now-defunct human spaceflight program and setting clear and achievable goals that will lead to advancements in science and technology," said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). "This legislation restores and clarifies NASAs role in human spaceflight and sets the US back on course to lead exploration of the cosmos."

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NASA's next step: Send people to a moon base or an asteroid?

NASA's big decision: Build a moon base or lasso an asteroid?

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NASA and lawmakers disagree over the future of human spaceflight. NASA has its sights set on an asteroid landing, while legislators want a permanent moon base.

While NASA's proposed budget for 2014 unveiled this week reaffirms the space agency's ambitious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid, some members of Congress are pushing for a more familiar goal: a moon base by 2022.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a bold plan topark an asteroid near the moon. Astronauts would then explore the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, with the first visit perhaps coming as early as 2021.

The proposed "Asteroid Initiative" lines up with the manned spaceflight priorities of the Obama Administration, which three years ago cancelled NASA's moon-oriented Constellation program and directed the agency to get astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

But some lawmakers contend thatthe moonshould still be NASA's immediate human spaceflight target. They have reintroduced a 2011 bill called the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act (or REAL Space Act for short), which asks NASA to send astronauts to the moon by 2022 with the goal of establishing a long-term settlement there.

"The moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach," Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) said in a statement Wednesday. "In order to explore deeper into space to Mars and beyond a moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface."

The bill would also give NASA's manned spaceflight efforts more direction, its sponsors say.

"This legislation is not just about landing another human on the moon. It is about restoring our nations now-defunct human spaceflight program and setting clear and achievable goals that will lead to advancements in science and technology," said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). "This legislation restores and clarifies NASAs role in human spaceflight and sets the US back on course to lead exploration of the cosmos."

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NASA's big decision: Build a moon base or lasso an asteroid?

NASA Budget Cutbacks Would Cripple Planetary Science, Critics Say

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Proposed cuts included in NASA's 2014 budget request would sabotage a mission to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter that could support life, scientists say.

The Obama administration released its 2014 budget proposal Wednesday (April 10). While the budget would set aside $17.7 billion for NASA, it would cut the agency's previous $1.5 billion budget for the planetary science division by $200 million, scientists said in a live webcast sponsored by the Planetary Society, an organization founded by scientist Carl Sagan to promote solar-system exploration.

"We're a little disappointed that planetary science didn't get a little better shake," said Bill Nye, CEO of the society and popularly known as televisions "Bill Nye the Science Guy." [NASA's 2014 Space Goals Explained in Pictures]

The new budget does not follow the recommendations of the National Research Council's Planetary Science Decadal Survey, a 410-page report that surveyed dozens of planetary scientists to identify the top priorities for the field over the next decade, Nye said.

"This very-well-thought-out, strongly supported list of suggestions has not really been embraced or the better word would be 'ignored,'" Nye said.

Europa, a mysterious moon of Jupiter, has a churning ocean locked beneath its icy surface, making it one of the best potential sources of extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

But the new budget doesn't include any money to explore Europa's ice-covered ocean.

The budget does set aside funds to identify asteroids that could threaten Earth and to bring back samples from an asteroid, said Bill Adkins, a consultant for the society.

The administration's budget also includes funding to send a rover, much like the Curiosity rover, to Mars in 2020.

However, the budget does not set aside funds to take rocks back from the planet to study them on Earth, Adkins said.

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NASA Budget Cutbacks Would Cripple Planetary Science, Critics Say

Private Space Firms Praise NASA's Asteroid-Capture Plan

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NASA this week put the official stamp on an initiative to capture a near-Earth asteroid and haul it back to a "stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it."

The space agency apportioned $105 million for the mission as part of its fiscal 2014 budget, released on Wednesday. It also confirmed that mission simulations and training of astronauts for a trip to an asteroid have been ongoing since 2011.

"Performing these elements for the proposed asteroid initiative integrates the best of NASA's science, technology, and human exploration capabilities and draws on the innovation of America's brightest scientists and engineers," NASA said in a statement.

"It uses current and developing capabilities to find both large asteroids that pose a hazard to Earth and small asteroids that could be candidates for the initiative, accelerates our technology development activities in high-powered solar electric propulsion, and takes advantage of our hard work on the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, helping to keep NASA on target to reach the President's goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s," the agency said.

NASA reportedly has its sights on locating a roughly 500-ton, 25-foot carbonaceous (C-type) asteroid for retrieval in 2019. An unmanned spacecraft using a kind of solar-powered engine would fly to the target object and haul it back to the vicinity of the Moon, where a team of four astronauts traveling in an Orion capsule would visit it in 2021.

Private asteroid-mining venture Planetary Resources praised the plan and said NASA's efforts would help private firms to achieve their own goals of identifying useful asteroids for the purpose of robotically mining them for water, precious metals, and other valuable materials.

"We applaud NASA's intention to capture and redirect a small asteroid to trans-Lunar space by 2021. Based on the mission study performed by the Keck Institute for Space Studies, the plan is a reasonable extension of a number of technologies and approaches which have already been demonstrated on prior NASA missions," Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer of Planetary Resources, said in a statement.

"Finding, capturing and repositioning a 500-ton asteroid certainly is a difficult, but achievable task. Knowing the exact size and mass of an asteroid millions of kilometers away is a challenge with any kind of instrument. If your plan is to grab and return one, you'll want to make sure you can handle it once you get there! This is the reason why Planetary Resources is developing our Arkyd series of prospecting spacecraftto send-out ahead of any mining activity and obtain the necessary answers," Lewicki added in a blog post.

Another private venture, Deep Space Industries, has also announced its intention to locate and mine asteroids.

While there was enthusiasm for the asteroid initiative in some circles, there has been pushback from some in the space community as well as from members of the U.S. Congress. At a recent high-level meeting in Washington, it came to light that an internal battle over NASA's long-term goals for human spaceflight appears to be brewing within the space agency. Some influential people within NASA are pushing to return astronauts to the Moon before attempting a manned mission to an asteroid or to Mars, another major NASA objective.

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Private Space Firms Praise NASA's Asteroid-Capture Plan