bananas
bananas's JournalSister Megan Rice, Anti-Nuclear Protester, Charged Under Sabotage Act
Source: Huffington Post
Under cover of night on July 28, three anti-nuclear protesters snuck into a highly secretive uranium storage facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. They splashed walls with blood and spray-painted messages of peace. In emulation of a World War II German resistance movement, they brought white roses for the guards who arrested them.
But now the three protesters, including an 82-year-old nun, are facing a new charge of sabotage. As part of an updated indictment announced on Wednesday, Greg Boertje-Obed, Michael Walli and Sister Megan Rice could spend 20 years in prison for the felony crime of injuring national-defense premises under the Sabotage Act.
"They are innocent of all these charges and feel that everything they did was legal and moral, and I think they believe that this (new charge) is ridiculous," said Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans and one of the attorneys representing the three.
The protesters, who call themselves "Transform Now Plowshares," do not deny their actions, but they argue that it is actually the federal government that committed crimes by building and maintaining nuclear weapons.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/sister-megan-rice-anti-nuclear_n_2251611.html
US Congress bans word 'lunatic' in federal legislation
Source: BBC
The sharply divided US Congress has been able to agree on one thing at least - that the word "lunatic" should be banned.
The House of Representatives voted 398-1 on Wednesday to strike the term from all federal legislation, after the Senate did the same in May.
The measure is designed to remove language that has become outdated or demeaning from the US code.
<snip>
The word still appears in some parts of federal law - a section of financial regulation, for example, addresses the power of a bank to act as a "committee of estates of lunatics".
<snip>
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20628988
Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions
Article and discussion at a spaceflight message board.
Article:
Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions
December 6th, 2012 by Chris Bergin
The Golden Spike Company team have revealed their initial work to create commercial lunar expeditions to the surface of the Moon. Led by a heavyweight board of directors, the company is currently in Phase A of their evaluations into the hardware that will enable crewed landings on the Moon as early as 2020.
The company, formed in 2010, has an impressive board of directors, led by Board Chair Gerry Griffin – a former Director of Johnson Space Center and Apollo Flight Director – and President/CEO Alan Stern, the well-known Planetary scientist, and former head of all NASA science missions.
<snip>
Via comments provided via interview to NASASpaceFlight.com by Golden Spike’s leadership ahead of the announcement, the initial drive behind setting up the company was conceived out of the failing Constellation Program (CxP) – the NASA roadmap built from the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) that aimed to send NASA astronauts on lunar surface sorties ahead of crewed missions to Mars.
By early 2010, Mr Stern had set up a study group, to evaluate a commercial approach to sending people to the moon, with the findings portraying that it was “clearly possible” that the private sector could enable crewed lunar missions. By the fall of 2010, Mr Stern and Mr Griffin – along with members of the study group and others – formed the Golden Spike Company to push their ambitions forward.
<snip>
Discussion:
Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions
« on: Today at 06:00 PM »
We're out of embargo (1pm Eastern)
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/12/golden-spike-phase-a-commercial-lunar-landing-missions/
This article is mainly constructed from phone interviews kindly accommodated by GS, with some quotes from the pressers.
<snip>
Golden Spike space venture wants to fly you to the moon ... for $1.4 billion
Source: NBC
A group of space veterans and big-name backers today took the wraps off the Golden Spike Company, a commercial space venture that aims to send paying passengers to the moon and back at an estimated price of $1.4 billion or more for two.
<snip>
Golden Spike's announcement came on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last manned moonshot. Backers of the plan, including former NASA executive Alan Stern and former Apollo flight director Gerry Griffin, discussed the company's strategy at a National Press Club briefing in Washington.
<snip>
Stern, a planetary scientist who was NASA's associate administrator for science in 2007-2008, is Golden Spike's president and CEO, while Griffin is chairman of the board. Other board members include new-space entrepreneur Esther Dyson and Taber McCallum, co-founder and CEO of Paragon Space Development Corp. The lineup of advisers taps into a who's who of space figures, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former NASA shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, former NASA engineer Homer Hickam and Bill Richardson, who has served as U.N. ambassador, energy secretary and the governor of New Mexico.
<snip>
"We’re not just about America going back to the moon; we’re about American industry and American entrepreneurial spirit leading the rest of the world to an exciting era of human lunar exploration," Stern said in the venture's first news release. "It’s the 21st century, we’re here to help countries, companies, and individuals extend their reach in space, and we think we’ll see an enthusiastic customer manifest developing.”
<snip>
Read more: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/06/15731458-golden-spike-space-venture-wants-to-fly-you-to-the-moon-for-14-billion
Dental X-ray machine radiation danger alert
Dental X-ray machine radiation danger alert
By Michelle Roberts Health editor, BBC News online
3 December 2012
Dentists have been warned against using a hand-held X-ray machine on patients as it poses a significant health risk.
The cheap imported machine, known as the Tianjie Dental Falcon, exposes users and patients to 10 times the normal level of radiation, increasing their risks of cancer and organ damage.
<snip>
Emergency testing of the product by the Health Protection Agency and scientists at King's College Hospital in London revealed that it has insufficient lead shielding inside it to protect dentists and patients from excessive radiation.
The machine's X-ray beam is also too wide, which means a patient's whole skull and brain is exposed to radiation rather than just their mouth.
And the device poses an electrical hazard because it comes with a European plug and a travel adapter that are not earthed or fused for the UK mains supply. As well as being a fire hazard, it could cause a serious electric shock (50,000 volts) to the dentist or patients.
<snip>
Radiation warning over dental X-ray machine
Cheap eBay X-ray machine could give patients 10 times normal radiation dose
By Peter Russell
WebMD UK Health News
Medically Reviewed by Dr Keith David Barnard
4th December 2012 - Dentists are being warned to stop using portable X-ray machines that fail to display European conformity marks after one product was found to pose a health risk to patients.
Tests carried out by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) and King's College Hospital found that the Tianjie Dental Falcon device lacks sufficient shielding in the X-ray tube, which could result in patients receiving unacceptable levels of radiation. It would also pose a risk to operators under typical dental surgery workloads.
At least one dental surgery has been found using the device.
The cheap imported machine has been available for sale on eBay.
<snip>
SpaceX to launch Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR aka Triana aka GoreSat)
Posted in LBN:
SpaceX Awarded Two EELV-Class Missions from the United States Air Force
Source: Spaceref
The United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has awarded SpaceX two Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV)-class missions: DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) and STP-2 (Space Test Program 2). To be launched on SpaceX's Falcon launch vehicles in 2014 and 2015 respectively, the awards mark the first EELV-class missions awarded to the company to date.
<snip>
The DSCOVR mission will be launched aboard a Falcon 9 and is currently slated for late 2014, while STP-2 will be launched aboard the Falcon Heavy and is targeted for mid-2015. Both are expected to launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=39427
Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) (formerly known as Triana, unofficially known as GoreSat) is a NASA satellite proposed in 1998 by then-Vice President Al Gore for the purpose of Earth observation.
<snip>
The Bush Administration put the project on hold shortly after George W. Bush's inauguration.
<snip>
Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences whether the project was worthwhile. The resulting report stated that the mission was "strong and scientifically vital."
<snip>
Triana was removed from its original launch opportunity on STS-107 (the ill-fated Columbia mission in 2003). The $100 million satellite remained in storage for the duration of the Bush administration. In November 2008 the satellite was removed from storage and began recertification for a possible launch on board a Delta II or a Falcon 9.
<snip>
SpaceX Awarded Two EELV-Class Missions from the United States Air Force
Source: Spaceref
The United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has awarded SpaceX two Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV)-class missions: DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) and STP-2 (Space Test Program 2). To be launched on SpaceX's Falcon launch vehicles in 2014 and 2015 respectively, the awards mark the first EELV-class missions awarded to the company to date.
<snip>
The DSCOVR mission will be launched aboard a Falcon 9 and is currently slated for late 2014, while STP-2 will be launched aboard the Falcon Heavy and is targeted for mid-2015. Both are expected to launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=39427
Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) (formerly known as Triana, unofficially known as GoreSat) is a NASA satellite proposed in 1998 by then-Vice President Al Gore for the purpose of Earth observation.
<snip>
The Bush Administration put the project on hold shortly after George W. Bush's inauguration.[2]
<snip>
Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences whether the project was worthwhile. The resulting report stated that the mission was "strong and scientifically vital."[4]
<snip>
Triana was removed from its original launch opportunity on STS-107 (the ill-fated Columbia mission in 2003). The $100 million satellite remained in storage for the duration of the Bush administration. In November 2008 the satellite was removed from storage and began recertification for a possible launch on board a Delta II or a Falcon 9.[5][6]
<snip>
GPS Satellites Could Detect Nuclear Tests
Satellites Could Detect Nuclear Tests
by Carolyn Gramling on 4 December 2012, 8:25 PM | 0 Comments
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA—Even when they're underground, nuclear tests can be detected in the skies—and as a result, global satellite networks could become a powerful new tool in the arsenal of weapons to help detect clandestine underground nuclear explosions, a team of scientists reported here today at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
<snip>
Park and her colleagues previously demonstrated that it was possible to identify a UNE by its ionospheric fingerprint, in a study published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2011. The target in that case was North Korea's 25 May 2009 UNE: Park and her team found a unique TID that also pinpointed the location of the explosion to within about 4 kilometers of its seismically determined epicenter. They saw this TID pattern in data from 11 different Global Navigation Satellite System stations—astronomically unlikely for a random event.
In the current study, the team analyzed signals that GPS stations received after two 20-kiloton UNE tests the United States conducted in 1992. The two tests were part of a series of eight UNEs conducted from 1991 to 1992 at a dusty Department of Energy reservation 100 kilometers northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Researchers had begun testing nuclear devices at the Nevada Test Site in 1951; this latest series of blasts was codenamed Operation Julin, and the final two tests of the series—dubbed Hunters Trophy and Divider—took place on 18 September and 23 September, respectively. Those two also became the last nuclear tests the United States conducted before President George H. W. Bush signed a law imposing a moratorium on all nuclear weapons testing, on 2 October 1992. (The 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty had already banned all but underground tests.) In 1996, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty—but the United States has yet to ratify it.
The team came up with a relatively simple algorithm to find the signal within the noise. They first removed the effect of distortions from changes to the diurnal cycle and from the changing geometry of the satellites themselves. Then they converted the ionospheric delay between satellites and stations into a "total electron content" in the TIDs. From all of these data, they came up with a profile for the TIDs: their amplitude, their frequency, and how quickly they traveled through the ionosphere. That same profile appeared in multiple stations—and as a result, based on where the stations were and how long it took that fingerprinted signal to arrive, the team was also able to pinpoint the location of the original signal—the Hunters Trophy blast. They devised a similar algorithm to identify and characterize the Divider blast using GPS data.
<snip>
Massive solar flare could have caused eighth century radiation burst
Massive solar flare could have caused eighth century radiation burst
28 Nov 2012 | 18:00 GMT | Posted by Ananyo Bhattacharya | Category: Earth, environment & ecology, Physics & Mathematics, Space and astronomy, Uncategorized
A mysterious spike in atmospheric carbon-14 levels 12 centuries ago might be a sign the Sun is capable of producing solar storms dozens of times worse than anything we’ve ever seen, a team of physicists calculates in a paper published this week in Nature.
<snip>
The problem, Melott says, is that the Japanese team treated solar storms as if they shone like light bulbs, radiating energy uniformly in all directions. But actually, they produce ‘blobs’ of energetic plasma that explode outwards unevenly. Adjusting for that, he says, reduces the size of the solar storm needed to produce the observed 14C spike from 1,000 times larger than anything known, to only 10–20 times larger — meaning that a giant solar storm is suddenly back on the table as a reasonable explanation.
Furthermore, observations by NASA’s Kepler space telescope have found that Sun-like stars are capable of generating superstorms of this type every few hundred to 1,000 years. This doesn’t mean the Sun does the same, “but it suggests it’s reasonable”, Melott says.
<snip>
If the 774–75 event was indeed a flare, it’s a disturbing find. Such a flare would be about 60 times more powerful than the 1989 solar storm that knocked out power to much of Quebec for nine hours on a cold winter night. Multiply that by 60 and add two decades of increased technological vulnerability, and the effects might be disastrous. “A lot of people could die,” Melott says. “You could have power out for months or longer — no refrigerated food, no food being transported to all the people who live in big cities.”
EDF Falls in Paris on Rising Costs for Normandy Nuclear Reactor
Source: Bloomberg
Electricite de France SA declined in Paris as the biggest nuclear operator raised the estimated cost of developing its EPR reactor in Normandy to 8.5 billion euros ($11 billion), more than double its initial estimate.
<snip>
“The risks in EDF are piling up,” Ingo Becker, an analyst in Frankfurt at Kepler Capital Markets who has a reduce rating, said in a note. A 13 euro price estimate “isn’t safe at all.”
EDF dropped as much as 2.6 percent and was trading down 28.5 cents at 14.01 euros by 10:08 a.m. in Paris. The company has slumped 25 percent this year in part on concern about the cost of refurbishing current reactors and building new ones.
<snip>
“The costs have already exceeded even the most bearish estimates and this is with at least three more years of development ahead of us,” Sofia Savvantidou, an analyst at Citigroup, said in a note. The difficulties in France raise concerns over EDF’s plans to develop EPRs in the U.K., she said.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-04/edf-falls-in-paris-on-rising-costs-for-normandy-nuclear-reactor.html
Profile Information
Member since: Wed Nov 10, 2004, 12:55 AMNumber of posts: 27,509
