Repairing Pinellas beaches damaged by Tropical Storm Debby may cost up to $20 million

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By Anna M. Phillips, Times Staff Writer Anna M. PhillipsTampa Bay Times In Print: Thursday, July 12, 2012

The damage to Pinellas County beaches wrought by Tropical Storm Debby could cost as much as $20 million to repair, county officials announced Wednesday.

Exactly how much sand was washed away remains to be tallied. But the visuals of eroded dunes and waves crashing where beachgoers used to plant their chairs suggest that reshaping the shoreline will be a costly endeavor.

However Sisyphean the task of constantly feeding new sand to eroding beaches may seem, county officials said it is one that must continue if Pinellas is to attract tourists and protect its residents from storms.

"People expect to see the beach when they come here on vacation and that's going to be a priority for us, it has to be," County Commissioner John Morroni said Wednesday during a Tourist Development Council meeting.

County officials hope federal and state governments will bear the majority of the renourishment costs, said Andy Squires, the coastal manager for Pinellas County.

"It could potentially be done this calendar year if we get federal and state funding," Squires said. "If not, renourishment could take months or years."

Most of the county's beach restoration projects are funded 60 percent by the federal government, 20 percent from the state, and 20 percent from the county. But the crackdown on congressional earmarks traditionally the county has relied on U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young to bring home the sand and the recession have made it more difficult to get aid.

Pinellas must compete for money against other counties, many of which also suffered from Debby. If the county does not get outside aid, it could dip into its reserve fund or use money that was allocated for beach repair before Debby's arrival.

Plans already were under way to restore certain beaches, such as Sand Key, where construction has begun, and Treasure Island's Sunset and Sunshine beaches, which were scheduled for repair in 2013.

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Repairing Pinellas beaches damaged by Tropical Storm Debby may cost up to $20 million

New Moon Discovered in Our Solar System [Astronomy]

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New Moon Discovered in Our Solar System [Astronomy]

The softly glowing zodiac: lesson learned | Bad Astronomy

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Every day I post a short, pithy astronomy or space fact on Twitter and Google+. I call them BAFacts, and I have them all archived here on the blog. I try to make them as accurate as possible within the limitation of 140 characters. But I wrote one recently that, as it turns out, I had to retract for being incorrect. And Im happy about it! Heres why.

I recently was going through old posts and saw one that mentioned zodiacal light, a very faint glow in the sky that can only be seen on very dark nights. Its a band of light that follows the path of the planets across the sky, which is technically called the ecliptic. It passes through the constellations of the zodiac, hence its name*.

This picture of the zodiacal light is by friend of the BABlog Brad Goldpaint [click to embiggen, and note this is a part of a larger shot that's breathtaking]. The two bright "stars" are Venus and Jupiter, and you can see the glow from zodiacal light reaching up and to the left, following the ecliptic.

The origin of zodiacal light (when I learned about it, years ago) was thought to be dust from asteroid collisions. Asteroids out past Mars orbit pretty much in the same plane as the planets. When they smack into each other and they do they make dust. This reflects sunlight, so wed see it as a faint band of light across the ecliptic. Case closed!

Of course, regular readers know me better than this. Read on!

So I wrote up a BAFact and tweeted it:

It says, "#BAFact: Zodiacal light is sunlight reflecting dimly on wreckage from asteroid collisions. http://t.co/wZnQBZOY", and the link goes to the article I wrote a while back mentioning zodiacal light.

Once it was up, I went on my merry way for like three minutes. Luke Dones, who follows me on Twitter, tweeted this:

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The softly glowing zodiac: lesson learned | Bad Astronomy

TomaGold Corporation Awards DIAGNOS a Contract to Use Its Artificial Intelligence Technology to Target Gold and Copper

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BROSSARD, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - July 12, 2012) - DIAGNOS inc. ("DIAGNOS" or the "Corporation") (ADK.V), a leader in the use of artificial intelligence ("AI") and advanced knowledge extraction techniques, is pleased to announce today that its CARDS(Computer Aided Resources Software) technology will be used to target gold and copper on TomaGold Corporation. ("TomaGold") properties in the Chibougamau region.

DIAGNOS will assist Tomagold to find targets by using its CARDS (Computer Aided Resource Detection Software) technology, which makes it possible to identify the sites having the same signature as known mines and deposits.

"TomaGold is hopeful that DIAGNOS' technology will be accurate and effective surroundings our major discovery of 237.6 g/t of gold over 5.7 metres in Hole M-12-60 on the Monster lake project. Further to our exploration and definition of the Annie Zone, CARDS will help us identify new targets of our projects Lac a l'Eau Jaune and Winchester acquired lately." declared Mr. David Grondin, President and CEO of TomaGold.

"The principal advantage in the use of the artificial intelligence is the ability to update the model regularly. The backbone of CARDS is a data mining engine which learns the signature or fingerprints of known mineralized sites, and identifies points (targets) with a high statistical probability of similarity to known areas of mineralizations across less explored regions. We can follow the project from day to day while inserting the new drilling data. We will also be able to analyze their overall property by using the new signature. From the moment we receive the data from TomaGold, it is necessary to count between 5 to 10 working days for the production of the final report. We are proud to work with dynamic and innovating people having shown their know-how" declared Michel Fontaine, Vice-President - Business Development of DIAGNOS.

About TomaGold

TomaGold is a dynamic Canadian-based mineral exploration company. The Corporation is dedicated to create shareholders value on acquiring, exploring and developing quality Canadian gold properties in an efficient and environmentally responsible manner.

About DIAGNOS

Founded in 1998, DIAGNOS is a publicly traded Canadian corporation (ADK.V), with a mission to commercialize technologies combining contextual imaging and traditional data mining thereby improving decision making processes. DIAGNOS offers products, services, and solutions to clients in a variety of fields including healthcare, natural resources, and entertainment.

DIAGNOS can count on a multidisciplinary team that includes professionals in geophysics, geology, Artificial Intelligence, mathematics, as well as remote sensing and image interpretation. The Corporation's objective is to develop a royalty stream by significantly enhancing and participating in the exploration success rate of mining. For further information, please visit our Website at http://www.diagnos.com. The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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TomaGold Corporation Awards DIAGNOS a Contract to Use Its Artificial Intelligence Technology to Target Gold and Copper

Clockwork Launches Aerospace and Defense Product Suite

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AUSTIN, Texas, July 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Clockwork, a global leader of predictive analytic solutions for enterprise asset management (EAM), today announced their Aerospace and Defense product suite designed to improve availability, reduce repair parts inventory and drive down life cycle costs of critical air and ground platforms. The company has significant experience in the Aerospace and Defense sector and has built this product suite to fill the gap in predicting and forecasting parts and maintenance requirements for high these highly valued assets.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120531/MM16963LOGO)

"The substantial costs to buy and maintain these platforms, along with tight budgets and increased military demand have put pressure on the Aerospace and Defense industry to develop new strategies to ensure fleet availability without increasing costs," stated Sean Connors, CEO. "Optimizing the life cycle of these expensive mission critical assets addresses these concerns and provides a new innovative approach to managing the bottom line."

The Aerospace and Defense industry is looking for solutions to better manage their operations under restricted budgets. The ability to predict an asset failure, the labor workload associated with fleet maintenance, and the optimized repair parts demand is essential to managing in the current environment. Repair parts and service for a single maintenance request can cost millions, but with Clockwork's products one can minimize cost, maximize uptime, and predict the best time to perform maintenance for these critical platforms:

DESIGN products are predictive analytic offerings that provide defense systems design firms and their military customers the ability to reduce life cycle costs during asset design phases.

DEMAND predictive analytic offerings provide defense logistics planners the ability to improve fleet readiness while reducing repair parts and maintenance costs.

COMMAND predictive analytic offerings are focused on the evaluation, implementation, and ongoing support of a predictive maintenance solution for individual platforms and fleets, assessing and managing the risk of possible component/part failure.

To learn more about Clockwork's experience and detailed product information in the Aerospace and Defense industry visit http://www.clockwork-solutions.com/aerospace-defense or email us at info@clockwork-solutions.com.

About Clockwork: Clockwork is a global leader of predictive analytic solutions for enterprise asset management (EAM) that improve availability and reduce repair parts inventory and maintenance costs of capital intensive assets. The company has years of experience serving the needs of the Aerospace and Defense, Energy, Heavy Machinery and Transportation industries by providing cutting edge solutions to help analyze their data, giving them visibility to each phase of an asset's life cycle, resulting in billions worth of savings. For more information visit http://www.clockwork-solutions.com.

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Clockwork Launches Aerospace and Defense Product Suite

Obituary: Milton Bosse / Retired chair of West Penn’s pathology department

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Feb. 11, 1915 - July 8, 2012

July 12, 2012 12:18 am

By Elizabeth Bloom/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Milton Bosse, a doctor who served as chairman of West Penn Hospital's pathology department, researched polio and mustard gas poisoning during World War II and served patients in Pitcairn for 55 years, died Sunday of a recurrence of hemorrhagic stroke. He was 97.

Dr. Bosse was born on Feb. 11, 1915, in Kansas, where his father was a grain elevator owner. After attending the University of Kansas for undergraduate studies and medical school, he came to Pittsburgh for a residency in pathology in 1938. He never stopped practicing in Pennsylvania until retiring in 1995 at age 80.

Known for regularly putting in 80-hour work weeks, he frequently made house calls while conducting a family practice in Pitcairn. He also helped establish the polio research laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, which was later headed by Jonas Salk.

While working on research to treat mustard gas poisoning, he met Barbara Cramer Flinn, whom he married in 1946 and with whom he had three children. The couple lived in Monroeville and Churchill until 2004, when they moved to Centre County. Mrs. Bosse died in May.

In an article published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1995 announcing Dr. Bosse's retirement, he said, "I knew this was right for me," gesturing to his examining room.

He ran his father's grain company from afar until his mother's death. He enjoyed cycling in his spare time.

His civic life included elderships at Bethel United Presbyterian Church and State College Presbyterian Church and a 49-year perfect attendance record at the Monroeville Rotary Club.

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Obituary: Milton Bosse / Retired chair of West Penn's pathology department

Nutrition expert questions obesity claims

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Published: 10:15AM Thursday July 12, 2012 Source: ONE News

Source: Reuters

A nutrition expert has questioned a scholar's claims that obesity is not a health problem.

Elaine Rush told TV ONE's Breakfast this morning that she is concerned by Dr Cat Pause's assertion that obesity is not necessarily a serious health issue.

Rush, a Professor of Nutrition at Auckland University of Technology, disputes Massey University lecturer Pause's claim that "the science [on obesity] isn't as clear cut as what we might like to believe".

Professor Rush said that Pause's claims contradict research that has proves the carrying of excess weight is dangerous for people's health.

"It's not just how much you weigh for your height, it's where it is in the liver, pancreas, and places that you can't see," Rush said.

The last Ministry of Health Nutrition Survey found that one in three adults were overweight (37.0%) and one in four were obese (27.8%).

Rush says that the chances of developing obesity-related diseases such as diabetes start at conception.

"If a mother has gestational diabetes, which she is more likely to do if she is carrying excess body fat, than that child is at least four times more likely to have diabetes in their life."

Excerpt from:
Nutrition expert questions obesity claims

Source: DNA at Occupy protest similar to material on victim's CD player

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By Deborah Feyerick, CNN

updated 5:46 PM EDT, Wed July 11, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

New York (CNN) -- DNA found on a chain used by protesters believed to be aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York appears to be a "similar profile" to DNA recovered in the unsolved murder of a Julliard student in 2004, according to a source with knowledge of the case.

There currently is no definitive forensic match between DNA recently found on the chain and DNA on a compact disc player believed to have belonged to Sarah Fox, which was recovered in 2004, the source said.

Heiress' death a mystery

City authorities say they are investigating what could be new evidence in the killing of Fox, although they remained cautious, saying the find could pose any number of possibilities and is potentially unrelated to her death.

The chain was recovered in Brooklyn and used by demonstrators during a March protest, the source said.

Fox, a third-year drama student at the prestigious performing arts school in Manhattan, was 21 when she went missing.

Her roommate told authorities she was last seen leaving their apartment with her keys and a pink portable CD player.

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Source: DNA at Occupy protest similar to material on victim's CD player

Posted in DNA

Virgin boss Branson gets kids on board for first space flight of his Galactic venture

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By Pan Pylas, The Associated Press

FARNBOROUGH, England - The first space flight of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture will be a family affair: The billionaire adventurer confirmed Wednesday he will be joined by his two adult children.

The British tycoon behind the Virgin business empire that spans cable television, airlines and space tourism revealed that the three will make the journey 62-miles (100 kilometres) above the Earth aboard the SpaceshipTwo (SS2) next year. Some 120 other tourists who have signed up for the $200,000 two-hour trips into space over the coming years were also present at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.

"Next year, Holly and Sam will be joining me for a first voyage into space," the thrill-seeker told a packed conference on the third day of the show. "Going into space is a hard business. It keeps my mind buzzing."

Virgin says it has 529 paid up passengers already one more than the total of space travellers since the former Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin became the first man to go into space in 1961.

The future space tourists glimpsed a replica of the SS2 set up outside the auditorium as the actual one undergoes flight testing in California's Mojave Desert. It will take off from a spaceport in New Mexico that was designed by British architect Lord Foster. The craft is designed to seat six people as well as the two pilots.

The tourists will have to undergo a week of training at the spaceport before taking their flight.

"I wanted to be the first Irishman in space and I'm really looking forward to it," said 70-year-old businessman and author Bill Cullen, who said he was the first to sign up for the ride in 2004.

Grant Roberts, 36, said his dream of space flight came from his grandfather, who was a pilot for Britain's Royal Air Force and flew on missions over Germany in World War II.

Branson also said a new launch vehicle LauncherOne would take small satellites into space at much lower cost than is now possible The Virgin Galactic team said a number of companies were hoping to use LauncherOne, which is expected to begin operations in 2016 and can carry up to 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of weight.

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Virgin boss Branson gets kids on board for first space flight of his Galactic venture

Sir Richard Branson's kids to join him on first space flight

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FARNBOROUGH, England The first space flight of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture will be a family affair: The billionaire adventurer says he will be joined by his adult children.

The British tycoon behind the Virgin business empire that spans cable television, airlines and space tourism revealed that the three will make a 60-mile (100-kilometer) journey on the SpaceshipTwo (SS2) next year -- along with 120 other tourists who have signed on to take the $200,000 two-hour trip where only a select few have gone before.

"Next year Holly and Sam will be joining me for a first voyage into space," the thrill-seeker told a packed conference Wednesday on the third day of the Farnborough Airshow south of London. "Going into space is a hard business. It keeps my mind buzzing."

Virgin says 529 have paid for the right to go to space -- one more than the total number of space travelers since Russia's Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in 1961.

- Sir Richard Branson

The future space tourists got their first glimpse of the SS2, with a replica set up outside the auditorium as the real one gets fixed up in the Mojave Desert, New Mexico, along with a spaceport designed by British architect Lord Foster. The tourists will have to undergo a week of training at the spaceport before taking their flight.

"I wanted to be the first Irishman in space and I'm really looking forward to it," said 70-year-old businessman and author Bill Cullen, who was the first to sign up for the ride in 2004.

Grant Roberts, 36, said his dream of space flight came from his grandfather, who was a pilot for Britain's Royal Air Force and flew on missions over Germany in World War II.

Branson also said a new launch vehicle -- LauncherOne -- would take small satellites into space at much lower cost than is now possible The Virgin Galactic team said a number of companies were hoping to use LauncherOne, which is expected to begin operations in 2016 and can carry up to 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of weight.

"It will be a critical new tool for the global research community, enabling us all to learn about our home planet more quickly and affordably," he said.

Continued here:

Sir Richard Branson's kids to join him on first space flight

First Galactic flight to lift Bransons

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FARNBOROUGH, England (AP) - The first space flight of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture will be a family affair: The billionaire adventurer says he will be joined by his adult children.

The British tycoon behind the Virgin business empire that spans cable television, airlines and space tourism revealed that the three will make a 60-mile (100-kilometer) journey on the SpaceshipTwo (SS2) next year.

Some 120 other tourists who have signed up for the $200,000 two-hour trips into space over the coming years were also present at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.

"Next year, Holly and Sam will be joining me for a first voyage into space," the thrill-seeker told a packed conference Wednesday on the third day of the show. "Going into space is a hard business. It keeps my mind buzzing."

Virgin says it has 529 paid up passengers already - one more than the total of space travelers since the former Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin became the first man to go into space in 1961.

The future space tourists got their first glimpse of the SS2, with a replica set up outside the auditorium as the real one gets fixed up in the Mojave Desert. It will take off from a spaceport in New Mexico that was designed by British architect Lord Foster.

The craft is designed to seat six people as well as the two pilots.

The tourists will have to undergo a week of training at the spaceport before taking their flight.

"I wanted to be the first Irishman in space and I'm really looking forward to it," said 70-year-old businessman and author Bill Cullen, who was the first to sign up for the ride in 2004.

Grant Roberts, 36, said his dream of space flight came from his grandfather, who was a pilot for Britain's Royal Air Force and flew on missions over Germany in World War II.

Originally posted here:

First Galactic flight to lift Bransons

Branson gets kids on board for first space flight

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FARNBOROUGH, England (AP) -- The first space flight of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture will be a family affair: The billionaire adventurer confirmed Wednesday he will be joined by his two adult children.

The British tycoon behind the Virgin business empire that spans cable television, airlines and space tourism revealed that the three will make the journey 62-miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth aboard the SpaceshipTwo (SS2) next year. Some 120 other tourists who have signed up for the $200,000 two-hour trips into space over the coming years were also present at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.

"Next year, Holly and Sam will be joining me for a first voyage into space," the thrill-seeker told a packed conference on the third day of the show. "Going into space is a hard business. It keeps my mind buzzing."

Virgin says it has 529 paid up passengers already one more than the total of space travelers since the former Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin became the first man to go into space in 1961.

The future space tourists glimpsed a replica of the SS2 set up outside the auditorium as the actual one undergoes flight testing in California's Mojave Desert. It will take off from a spaceport in New Mexico that was designed by British architect Lord Foster. The craft is designed to seat six people as well as the two pilots.

The tourists will have to undergo a week of training at the spaceport before taking their flight.

"I wanted to be the first Irishman in space and I'm really looking forward to it," said 70-year-old businessman and author Bill Cullen, who said he was the first to sign up for the ride in 2004.

Grant Roberts, 36, said his dream of space flight came from his grandfather, who was a pilot for Britain's Royal Air Force and flew on missions over Germany in World War II.

Branson also said a new launch vehicle LauncherOne would take small satellites into space at much lower cost than is now possible The Virgin Galactic team said a number of companies were hoping to use LauncherOne, which is expected to begin operations in 2016 and can carry up to 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of weight.

"It will be a critical new tool for the global research community, enabling us all to learn about our home planet more quickly and affordably," he said.

Read the original:

Branson gets kids on board for first space flight

NASA Hubble Discovers Fifth Moon of Pluto

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A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto.

The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.

"The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said team lead Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

The discovery increases the number of known moons orbiting Pluto to five.

The Pluto team is intrigued that such a small planet can have such a complex collection of satellites. The new discovery provides additional clues for unraveling how the Pluto system formed and evolved. The favored theory is that all the moons are relics of a collision between Pluto and another large Kuiper belt object billions of years ago.

The new detection will help scientists navigate NASA's New Horizons spacecraft through the Pluto system in 2015, when it makes an historic and long-awaited high-speed flyby of the distant world. The team is using Hubble's powerful vision to scour the Pluto system to uncover potential hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft. Moving past the dwarf planet at a speed of 30,000 miles per hour, New Horizons could be destroyed in a collision with even a BB-shot-size piece of orbital debris.

"The discovery of so many small moons indirectly tells us that there must be lots of small particles lurking unseen in the Pluto system," said Harold Weaver of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

"The inventory of the Pluto system we're taking now with Hubble will help the New Horizons team design a safer trajectory for the spacecraft," added Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., the mission's principal investigator.

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978 in observations made at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Hubble observations in 2006 uncovered two additional small moons, Nix and Hydra. In 2011 another moon, P4, was found in Hubble data.

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NASA Hubble Discovers Fifth Moon of Pluto

NASA's Commercial Crew Partner Sierra Nevada Completes Dream Chaser Nose Landing Gear Test

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LOUISVILLE, Colo. -- NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has completed a successful test of the nose landing gear for its full-scale Dream Chaser engineering flight test vehicle. The completed test and an upcoming flight test are part of SNC's Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

The gear test is an important milestone to prepare for the upcoming approach and landing test of the Dream Chaser Space System later this year. It evaluated the impact the nose landing gear will experience on touchdown in order to ensure a safe runway landing.

SNC is one of seven companies developing commercial crew transportation capabilities to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser is the only spacecraft under CCDev2 that is winged and designed to land on a conventional runway. It is designed to carry as many as seven astronauts to space.

"The landing gear system must perform flawlessly, just like the space shuttle orbiter's did, for the safe return of the crew," CCP program manager Ed Mango said. "It's great to see that SNC is building on that experience while developing the Dream Chaser spacecraft."

SNC tested the spacecraft's main landing gear in February. This nose landing gear test completes the milestones leading up to the upcoming approach and landing test, which will complete the CCDev2 partnership.

"This test marks a significant point in the development of the Dream Chaser orbital crew vehicle. As the last milestone before free flight of the Dream Chaser spacecraft, we are now preparing for the approach and landing tests to be flown later this year," said Jim Voss, SNC vice president of space exploration systems and program manager for the Dream Chaser.

All of NASA's industry partners, including SNC, continue to meet their established milestones in developing commercial crew transportation capabilities under CCDev2.

For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program and CCDev2, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

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NASA's Commercial Crew Partner Sierra Nevada Completes Dream Chaser Nose Landing Gear Test

Destination Pluto: NASA's New Horizons Mission in Pictures

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NASA's New Horizons Mission at Pluto

An artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it visits Pluto in 2015. Instruments will map Pluto and its moons, providing detail not only on the surface of the dwarf planet, but also about its shape, which could reveal whether or not an ocean lies beneath the ice.

This artist's rendering depicts the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its moons in summer 2015.

An overhead view of the New Horizons spacecraft's path across Uranus' orbit.

New Horizons has undergone extensive testing at NASAs Goddard Space Flight center and arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This montage of New Horizons images shows Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io, and were taken during the spacecraft's Jupiter flyby in early 2007.

NASA's New Horizons snapped this view of Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io in early January 2007.

KBO: Artist's impression of the New Horizons spacecraft meeting up with a Kuiper Belt object. The Sun is more than 4.1 billion miles (6.7 billion kilometers) away. Jupiter and Neptune are visible as orange and blue stars to the right of the Sun. Though KBOs would not be so visible at any one moment, they're shown here to illustrate the extensive disk of icy worlds beyond Neptune.

To be dispatched early 2006, the outward bound New Horizons spacecraft will throw new light on distant Pluto and its moon, Charon, as well as Kuiper Belt objects. Image

This amazing color portrait of Jupiters Little Red Spot (LRS) combines high-resolution images from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken at 03:12 UT on February 27, 2007, with color images taken nearly simultaneously by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Destination Pluto: NASA's New Horizons Mission in Pictures

NASA's Mars chief frets over heat shield for probe

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FARNBOROUGH, England (AP) So far, the scorecard for missions to Mars reads attempts 40, successes 14.

Not so good.

Well over 60 percent of Earth missions to Mars have failed, ever since the pioneering efforts of the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and including Britain's high-profile Beagle 2 space probe.

As NASA's latest mission to Mars heads closer to the Red Planet, the head of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Doug McCuistion, acknowledged Tuesday that many things could still go wrong before its scheduled Aug. 6 landing date.

The one thing that worries him most is if the spacecraft's heat shield will detach as planned when the U.S. Mars Science Laboratory mission sets down a large, mobile laboratory on Mars the rover Curiosity.

"If you look at the scorecard, Earth is doing less than 50 percent; less than 50 percent of Earth's missions to Mars have been successful," McCuistion, a former U.S. fighter pilot, said at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.

In the seven minutes before its planned touchdown, the U.S. spacecraft has a number of tasks it has to complete for Curiosity to make a safe landing. First it must get rid of the heat shield and avoid a subsequent collision with it. Then it has to slow its descent to the Red Planet with the aid of a massive parachute as well as use rockets mounted around the rim of an upper stage. In the final seconds, the upper stage of the spacecraft acts as a sky crane, lowering the upright rover on a tether to the surface.

In spite of the challenges, McCuistion remains positive that the $2.5 billion mission will be a success and praises the unprecedented international cooperation between NASA and companies like German electronics company Siemens AG.

After all, NASA, the world's biggest space agency, enjoyed success with its twin Mars Exploration Rovers in the mid-2000s.

"I can't really give you a hard number .... but I think we are in a medium-to-low risk environment," McCuistion said.

Continued here:

NASA's Mars chief frets over heat shield for probe

Will NASA's Mars rover crash?

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For NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to arrive undamaged on the surface of the Red Planet, a lot of things will have to go right.

So far, the scorecard for missions toMarsreads attempts 40, successes 14.

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Not so good.

Well over 60 percent of Earth missions toMarshave failed, ever since the pioneering efforts of the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and including Britain's high-profile Beagle 2 space probe.

As NASA's latest mission toMarsheads closer to the Red Planet, the head of NASA'sMarsExploration Program, Doug McCuistion, acknowledged Tuesday that many things could still go wrong before its scheduled Aug. 6 landing date.

The one thing that worries him most is if the spacecraft's heat shield will detach as planned when the U.S.MarsScience Laboratory mission sets down a large, mobile laboratory onMars the roverCuriosity.

"If you look at the scorecard, Earth is doing less than 50 percent; less than 50 percent of Earth's missions toMarshave been successful," McCuistion, a former U.S. fighter pilot, said at the Farnborough Airshow south of London.

In the seven minutes before its planned touchdown, the U.S. spacecraft has a number of tasks it has to complete forCuriosity to make a safe landing. First it must get rid of the heat shield and avoid a subsequent collision with it. Then it has to slow its descent to the Red Planet with the aid of a massive parachute as well as use rockets mounted around the rim of an upper stage. In the final seconds, the upper stage of the spacecraft acts as a sky crane, lowering the upright rover on a tether to the surface.

Continue reading here:

Will NASA's Mars rover crash?