Saturday, November 15, 2008

At 8:34 pm Indian time Friday night (1504 UTC), India became the fourth country to land its flag on the Moon.

The unmanned lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 ejected its Moon Impact Probe (MIP), which hurtled across the surface of the Moon at 1.5 kilometres per second (3000 miles per hour), and successfully crash landed near the Moon’s south pole. Besides carrying three important scientific instruments, the lunar probe also carried the image of the Indian national flag, painted on all sides.

Chandrayaan-1 (meaning ‘Moon craft’ in Sanskrit) reached its target lunar orbit on Wednesday. The orbiter will remain in a circular orbit 102 kilometres above the Moon’s surface for two years. Its instruments will be gradually commissioned over the next few days.

With this landing, India became both the fourth country to place a flag on the Moon and the fifth group to send a spacecraft to the Moon. The other countries which have sent spacecraft to the Moon are the United States, the former Soviet Union, Japan, and China, along with the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries. Japan and China currently each have scientific satellites orbiting the Moon, though China has not yet put a spacecraft on the moon’s surface.

The MIP has a mass of 29 kg, is about the size of a microwave oven, and was designed and assembled in India. After the orbiter ejected it, the probe took about 25 minutes to reach the Moon’s surface. On-board digital cameras made a high resolution movie of the surface during descent, and scientists also conducted measurements with the probe’s mass spectrometer and radar altimeter. Data was beamed back to India via the orbiter, and it is currently being processed and analysed.

Data from the altimeter experiments will be used to refine the instrument in order to control the soft landing of a future probe. Plans are already being prepared for the Chandrayaan-2 to be launched by 2012.

India’s first lunar mission was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the Andhra Pradesh coast on October 22. The launch vehicle was an Indian designed and built rocket that had been previously proven by carrying scientific and commercial payloads to earth orbit, including weather and communications satellites. The cost of this mission is estimated at 340 crore (3.4 billion) rupees (US$78 million). The mission carries five scientific instruments built by India’s technology sector, and six developed cooperatively with foreign nations.

Goals for the orbiter include making a detailed map of the Moon’s chemical make-up and mineral resources, as well as a three-dimensional digital map of the entire surface. The mission will examine the surface for sources of water, and take comparison photos of the light side and dark sides of the surface.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The one billion pound Liverpool ONE retail development has opened in Liverpool. A 42 acre area of the city has been cordoned off for 3 years as developers from the Grosvenor Group rebuilt the area.

Currently about 40 shops are open and another 120 shops and 20 bars and restaurants will open in September. The area also includes residential development and a cinema. The flagship store is John Lewis.

The development is the largest retail development in Europe and contains the longest single-span box bridge in the world. A Novotel and a £50m Hilton Hotel are included in the site. Early next year Chavasse Park will reopen early as well as the 600 flat One Park West tower. BBC Radio Merseyside was one of the first parts of the development to open.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Formula One looks set to enter an era of standardised engines. The FIA is meeting with teams in Monte Carlo and is expected to approve the use by some teams of a standardised power unit provided by Cosworth, an automotive engineering company, from 2010 onwards. The move to a standard engine, which is common in lower tiers of open wheeled racing such as GP2, was pushed for by FIA President Max Mosley earlier this year as he aims to reduce team costs. This would not see the exclusion of manufacturer made engines, as at this time participation in the system would be voluntary and teams would be free to build licensed Cosworth engines or their own powerplants but on a performance par with the Cosworth unit. Mosley has stated that stabilising Formula One means that the FIA “…must stabilize the system with a base engine which anyone can have and which is inexpensive, as well as a standard gearbox” and has warned of future budget problems, saying that “Honda pulled out because of falling car sales and there is no guarantee that these falling sales, which affect all manufacturers, will not drop further”.

Ahead of the meeting of the FIA there have been rumours in the Italian press that Formula One team Renault had broken with the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA), rumours which Renault has strongly denied. FOTA was established earlier this year by the teams to negotiate with the FIA over cost cutting measures and other changes, changes it hopes will stop the introduction of compulsory standardisation of engines and other parts on F1 cars. The FOTA’s position was hard hit last week by the announcement by Honda that they were leaving F1 due to the economic crisis, a move which has caused many teams to re-assert their commitment to a future in Formula One. David Richards, whose Prodrive entry to Formula One was called off last season due to costs, highlighted what he sees as the need for fundamental changes, saying that Honda’s exit was ‘a salutary lesson for the whole of F1 that things are going to have to change, and everything is going to have to come back a little bit if the whole sport is to prosper in the future’.

Five teams have reportedly expressed an interest in the Cosworth engines from the 2010 season, the five being all four independent teams (Williams, Force India, Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso) joined by manufacturer Renault. If only four teams sign up to the idea, the FIA has announced it will go ahead. Renault have been highly vocal in criticising the failure of the engine development freeze that has existed in Formula One and have, after a couple of seasons of struggling, been under pressure from their parent company to justify the continued expenditure in Formula One. Cosworth have previously been prolific engine suppliers in Formula One, their last stint was supplying engines to Williams in 2006.

The talks come as many of the Formula One teams are in Jerez for part of their winter testing regime, with potential Toro Rosso driver Sebastian Buemi topping the time sheets for the first two days.

Monday, September 19, 2005

NASA has announced plans for sending humans back to the Moon, as a first step to Mars.

A 2018 lunar mission is proposed, where a crew of four would remain on the Moon for as long as a week. A minimum of two lunar missions a year is planned, with astronauts remaining as long as six months.

Some of the technology had previously been proposed for replacement of the Space Shuttle.

• Astronauts will be launched in a capsule, similar in concept to that used for the Project Apollo but three times larger. The top part of an Exploration Transportation System (ETS), the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will be a capsule attached to a service module which contains supplies, power, and propulsion units. The CEV is designed for use in Earth orbit.
• On lunar missions, crew or cargo versions of a Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) would be used with a CEV. The LSAM will have design concepts related to the Apollo Lunar Module, with a four-legged landing unit carrying an ascent stage.
• An Earth Departure Stage (EDS), a powerful propulsion unit, will be used to move CEV and LSAM units out of Earth orbit, such as on lunar missions.
• Heavy Launcher unmanned cargo rockets will be used for heavy loads of equipment.
• The launch rockets, Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles, will use engines developed for the Shuttle program.
  • CEV will be launched atop a Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), a single solid fuel booster with a second stage using a shuttle main engine. The CLV can carry a payload of 25 metric tons into low Earth orbit.
  • The heavy-lift system uses a pair of longer solid rocket boosters and five shuttle main engines to put up to 125 metric tons in orbit — about one and a half times the weight of a shuttle orbiter.
• The use of a Launch Escape System (LES) will improve safety. A LES is a top-mounted rocket that can quickly remove the crew capsule away from an exploding or otherwise dangerous rocket.

For a lunar mission, the LSAM and EDS would be placed in orbit by a cargo launcher, then a CEV would dock with the assembly before leaving Earth orbit.

The goal is to begin production of the new spacecraft by 2011.

• Robotic missions will be sent, probably the first one in 2008.
• Past experience with lunar dust is being used in designing equipment and spacesuits which may encounter it.
• Surface mobility with open and pressurized rovers for use in such missions is also being developed.
• The CEV can be reused up to ten times.
• Crew capsule, upon return to Earth, will set down on dry land. It can also land on water.
• The CEV and lunar lander ascent stage use methane as fuel, as methane may be available on Mars.
• Eventually the designs could be expanded to support six astronauts for a trip to Mars.

The plans are a means to implement President Bush’s “Vision for Space Exploration” program. Goals include:

• Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond;
• Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;
• Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and
• Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Jack A. Weil, founder and CEO of Rockmount Ranch Wear died on August 13 at the age of 107 in Denver, Colorado. He was the oldest working CEO in the United States. He was also known as “Papa Jack”.

He was born on March 28, 1901 in Evansville, Indiana. In 1946, Weil rented a space at 1626 Wazee Street in Denver and set about trying to create a fashionable yet practical identity for the western ranchers of the region.

Weil was well-known for coining the phrase “The West is not a place, it is a state of mind.” He was the first person to put snaps on Western shirts, patented the saw-tooth pocket design seen on many Western shirts, and was credited with inventing the bolo tie.

In 2001, he told Associated Press, “I learned fast you can’t sell to cowboys; they have no money. You have to appeal to the cowboy in everyone and sell to them.”

Among his customers were Ronald Reagan, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Nicholas Cage. More recently, Rockmount shirts were worn by the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2005 Academy Award-nominated movie, Brokeback Mountain.

Weil’s wife, Beatrice Baum, died in 1990, followed by his son Jack B. in January 2008.

“I never wanted to be the richest man in the cemetery,” he told his grandson and current president of the family business.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Chemicals in the Thompson River were said to be found after four Canadian Pacific Railway (CP Rail) cars containing chemicals derailed near Lytton, British Columbia, Canada on Tuesday night.

The derailment occurred just northeast of Lytton when a landslide hit in the middle of a freight train with about 100 cars at around 7:00 pm PDT (02:00 UTC) Tuesday evening. One car remained on the tracks, another was on a river bank, and two were submerged in the Thompson, one of them fully submerged and the other partially submerged. CP states that the cars were carrying the chemical ethylene glycol, commonly found in products such as antifreeze and windshield washer fluid. Glycol is water soluble and biodegradable but is causing concern to local fisheries and people dependent on aquatic life survival. Even though there is not enough chemical to be toxic after dilution in the water, there is still expressed concern that it may cause additional stress to aquatic life.

Despite protective measures, like a protective double hull, investigations found that broken valves and holes are causing the chemical to leak into the river. CP Rail originally denied that any chemical was leaking, but is now driving efforts to plug the leaks.

The Thompson River is a tributary of the larger Fraser River. The area is sensitive to harm because migrating salmon pass through and are in already in dwindling numbers in recent years.