Teenagers take images from space with a camera and balloon

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html
Four Spanish teenagers built a camera-operated weather balloon and sent it into the statosphere!

Chu Yun's Constellation

Dark room installation with many small flashing lights. They are coming from household appliances & electronics in pause or error mode.

Abandoned UFO house in Wanli, Taiwan

Cypherone's amazing flickr set of images of this abandoned UFO-style house in Wanli, which is on the North coast of Taiwan.
See more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cypherone/sets/72157608219667225/

Mars Exploration Rover's dusty solar panels

The Spirit Mars exploration rover's solar panels are covered with dust as seen in this image. The dust has caused the rover to travel only one hour per day before having to spend and additonal day charging it's batteries.

NASA evidence of Past Life on Mars

Moller Skycars

Paul Moller speaks on TED about his flying cars
Moller Skycar Website

Experimental French multiplane, 1890's

Satellite Collision Creates Tons of New Space Junk

New Scientist reported on February 12, that two space satellites smashed into each other on Tuesday in an unprecedented orbital accident. Government agencies are still assessing the aftermath, but early radar measurements have detected hundreds of pieces of debris that could pose a risk to other spacecraft. As first reported by CBS News, a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite and a communication satellite owned by the US firm Iridium collided some 790 kilometres above northern Siberia on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009.

"This is the first time that two intact spacecraft have accidentally run into each other," says Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office in Houston, Texas.

More info at NEW SCIENTIST.

Daniel Wurtzel's Floating World

Brooklyn based artist Daniel Wurtzel makes elegant sculpturesincorporating light weight materials suspended in a column of air. More information at http://www.danielwurtzel.com

(a) gravity weightless narratives

- Cast a meter of ribbon into the air and capture its trajectory and its movement in mid-flight (Tom Marioni)
- Float an object in space (Edith Dekyndt)
- Compare the ratio of weight and volume of a given body and experience the effect of its density (Didier Vermeiren)
- Walk vertically up a wall (Trisha Brown)
- Let oneself tumble and analyze the fall (Yoko Ono)

These are just a few propositions, or experimental methods, that make it possible to test gravity, to extricate oneself from it, or to render weightlessness tangible…
The laws of attraction and gravity invisibly govern the movement of the world and the elements: the incessant ebb and flow of the tides, the revolution of the planets. The universe is thus defined by its equilibrium of opposing forces. These imperceptible phenomena determine and delimit our way of being in the world, our dislocations, and irrevocably bind us to the earth.
From the fantasies of flying or floating (as revealed by the sublimity and pathos of Gino de Dominicis' attempt to transform himself into a man-bird, or by Yves Klein's angelic leap suspended in mid-air), to the philosophies of religious or metaphysical transcendence, humanity has aspired to elevation and desired to be free from alienation of and subjugation to gravity… Including the contemporary demand for lightness, from "lite" food to our relations to others, passing through the domain of thought…
This physical and existential dialectic, which is in a permanent state of oscillation between height and willful falling, drives us to explore the limits of balance and these opposing forces.
Vertigo, floating, rocking, inversion of perception, power, and tension are some key words to help guide the viewer through the exhibition which makes light of gravity in order either to subvert it or to make us experience it, in the lightness of dust as well as in the imposing physical presence of a ton of weight "suspended" in the air.

ACCESS / 49 NORD 6 EST - Frac Lorraine, 1bis rue des Trinitaires, F-57000 Metz
http://www.fraclorraine.org

The Integratron

In 1947 George van Tassel, a former aircraft mechanic and flight inspector for Howard Hughes, moved to Landers, California where he purchased “Giant Rock,” a massive 7 story freestanding boulder. With the intent of launching a tourist attraction, van Tassel opened a café and airport near the rock, which happened to be a sacred site revered by the Native Americans. Years before, a prospector named Frank Critzer excavated a series of tunnels and caves beneath the sacred rock. Critzer was considered somewhat of an eccentric, and as he was a German immigrant “mining” beneath the Rock during World War II, he came to be suspected a spy. He was tragically killed in a police siege at the base of the Rock in 1942. Van Tassel occasionally worked with Critzer in his uncle’s garage and learned of Giant Rock through him.
After acquiring the site, van Tassel began to regularly meditate within Critzer’s caves. In 1951 he claimed that during meditation he had “astrally projected” to an alien spaceship orbiting the earth, where he met the omnipotent Venusians (travelers from the planet Venus). Purportedly, after several “astral” visitations, the beings from the “Council of the Seven Lights” visited him on earth and instructed him to build a structure to “extend human life.”

Van Tassel began building a wood and fiberglass structure that he deemed “The Integratron.” The design was based upon a domed machine he allegedly encountered while aboard the Venusian flying saucer. Van Tassel proposed that the Giant Rock site was a powerful vortex, and that a domed building would concentrate the earth’s natural energy. Human visitors could harness this energy and focus their own electrical forces to create “resonance” and recharge their cells like a battery. He did warn his followers to exercise caution when telepathically communicating with the “Space Brethren” inside the Integratron ….due to the potential of over-stimulation resulting in spontaneous human combustion.

Van Tassel founded a research organization known as the “Ministry of Universal Wisdom,” and began hosting an annual UFO conference called the Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention (1953-1978). Needless to say his airport and café were never more successful. He continued to make slight alterations on the structure until his death in 1978.

Post: In the early spring of 2002, Giant Rock split in two. The structure now exists as a roadside tourist attraction, though there have been several proposals to convert it into a Joshua Tree disco. A loosely organized UFO-cult called the Ashtar Command now claims to have resumed van Tassel’s original vision.

Astronaut Loses Tool Bag in Space

Not the first incident of space junk, that's for sure. Here's an amusing article from the AP. A spacewalking astronaut has had a grease gun erupt in her bag, and the tote has drifted off into space. Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper (stef-uh-NIHshun PIE-pur) was wiping the grease off her spacesuit Tuesday when she accidentally let go of the bag outside the international space station. The bag floated off, and the astronauts were not able to do anything about it. She was on the spacewalk with Stephen Bowen. He had his own tool bag with another grease gun, putty knife and oven-like terry cloth mitts. They are using those tools to wipe away metal grit from a clogged joint at the space station. Mission Control says the spacewalk will continue as planned, and that the two astronauts will share tools.

This reminds me of a camera an astronaut lost in space:

2008 Steampunk Convention

American Concept Car Archive

Archive of American Concept Cars: http://viacomit.free.fr/index.php/2008/10/21/american-concept-cars/

GEO GOO

Of course JODI would do something this cool.
Visit their multiverse at: http://www.jodi.org

JODI (www.jodi.org), the wild Belgian-Dutch pioneer dopplegangers of Net Art, explore the relations between the constructed world of the Internet hybridized with mental maps and physical maps. GoogleMaps has radically changed our perception and global worldviews through it's commercial multi-user surface. JODI has recreated the 'Parc Royal' of Brussels (Warande Park) by by mapping geometrical constructs gleaned from Goolge Earth onto reality thus revealing symbols and mysteries, amplifying and deconstructing these manifestations as INFO PARK, an associative agglomeration of data.

From the press release for the show at IMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technologies:
For centuries, geometry has been overloaded with symbols, starting from pure mathematical objects to esoteric and mystic signs, hiding in complex figures meanings to be revealed to the gurus, the persons in the know or the psychedelic explorers. Geometrical shapes and lines were drawn on the territories, the cities, the architectures and the monuments or the crop fields. The Royal Parc of Brussels is a well known example with its triangle + circle = Masonic compass. JODI is connecting this long tradition of tracing geometry on the ground with the new geometries one can draw on the surface of the Earth as proposed by online tools such as Google Maps and Google Earth. Of course, the duo of artists draws in a pure JODI style: hectic and free traces resulting from extreme coding and hacking. As they always did since their first web pages in 1995, JODI uses the codes of Internet (e.g. html) and the codes inside the computers (binary) as their artistic material. They paved the way for Net Art and renewed Computer Arts as much as Nam June Paik opened new fields for video art. But the work of JODI plays also with the processes of coding/decoding, of deciphering cryptic data in a chaotic surface. Messages are hidden, only visible to the ones who will dare to dig into the code (see http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/). In the exhibition GEOGOO (Info Park), many things can be constructed into meanings, it just depends on you and your capacity to disconnect and reconnect: the radial glimpses of the sunshines in the video, the 3 DJ turntables laid on a perfect triangle at the visitor's disposal (backmasking!), the jogging walks through Brussels roundabouts. And if you can not reconfigure, just contemplate, it is beautifully rewarding.

Misty's Disappearance

Misty's Disappearance, by Eve Andree Laramee
/seconds #8 Edited by Peter Lewis

Here's a link to a project I have in the online journal "slashseconds" #8. The issue, "Vanishing Point: The Vicious and Virtuous Circle" focuses on works inspired by the 1971 film Vanishing Point, directed by Richard Sarafian, a quintessential road film. To view the project online:
Misty's Disappearance, by Eve Andree Laramee
My project, Misty's Disappearance, is a photo-text piece that is in response the true story of a woman who stole the last running Dodge Challenger used in the film, and drove off into the Mojave Desert. My fictionalization retells the story from her perspective, giving it a different ending than in reality. Each page is clickable, so you can read the text in an enlarged format.

I wish to thank Richard C. Sarafian, director, and Dennis J. Parrish, art director and prop master, for kindly sharing their experiences and memories by telephone on June 30, 2008. They spoke candidly about the making of the film, and the incident when the last running Dodge Challenger was stolen by a woman who drove off with it into the desert. I learned of this event by way of Sarafian’s audio commentary on the 2003 UK DVD release where he states: “Finally we had only one car left, and what happened, there was a lady, or we’ll call her a hooker, that the crew thought they sort of saved from a local hook joint, and she was traveling with the crew, and the word came back that Misty took off with our only car. The state police tracked her down in a helicopter, we were late that morning to work, but we got the car back. And we often talk about Misty. I don’t know where she is now.” In the telephone conversation with Sarafian, he said that after Misty spent the evening with several men on the crew, possibly at the Mitzpah Hotel in Tonapah, she stole the keys from one of them, and was eventually tracked down by helicopter at the California Border. Parrish has a slightly different account of the event: he does not remember the woman’s name but is certain that Misty is incorrect. He did confirm that a woman by another name, who was well known to the crew, did in fact steal the last running Challenger, and was apprehended by the California Highway Patrol in the Reno/Lake Tahoe area two or three days later. Parish too said he did not know where Misty was now, or if she is still alive. He said, Sarafian “took it all in stride finding the event hilarious,” and that any other director would be furious and screaming, but he accepted it as part of the extended story. They both described the weeks during which the film was shot as a series of magical surreal, moments in time, and remarked on the metaphysical and spiritual subtext of the film and how this quality significantly sets it apart from other road films of the era.

My project is a fictionalization of Misty/Desirée’s point of view of the car theft. Rather than interpreting her story as a crime, or a reversal of loss, or worse a disaster, I seek to create a fictional terrain: geographic, psychological and cognitive, in which the reader/viewer imagines the days of her disappearance. The intention is to provide “Misty” with an escape into an alternative history and an alternative future, had her luck or circumstances been different. I delight in the fact that Sarafian saw her actions as a “perfectly surreal event” in relation to the film. My project opens up a space for Misty’s release: she makes her get away, was not apprehended, the crew cheers her on, there are no surveillance helicopters, no California Highway Patrolmen, only her own psychological complexities to deal with. She makes it to the waters of the Gulf of California, that slip of sea between Baja and mainland Mexico to begin her new life. Ever onward, Misty/Desirée. Plus ultra, more beyond.

Space rock found on collision course with Earth

Astronomers have found an object on a certain collision course with Earth. Fortunately, it is so small it is not expected to cause any damage, burning up in the atmosphere somewhere above northern Sudan in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. It may, however, produce a brilliant 'shooting star'.

More info at NewScientistSpace

Giant Swallow Returns

Via Jeni on http://wndring.blogspot.com

More info on the Giant Swallow project http://www.complex.com/blogs/2008/05/20/giant-birds-nest-takes-over-office-building

A-10 Sugarbolt III

Graham Coreil-Allen's 2007 proposal.

The “A-10 Sugarbolt III” will be a 1/3rd size interpretation
of the A-10 Thunderbolt II close air support jet used in
both the 1991 and current Iraq wars. The craft will con-
sist of a semi soft, light weight plastic skeleton, wrapped
in a multi-colored skin of grocery bags. A twelve person
support crew will use 10’ PVC poles to float the craft
above their heads. Each wing will carry a “bomb”
carefully designed to drop candy on willing spectators.
During the parade, crew members will turbulently
shake the craft’s wings to activate candy bombing.
In addition, crew members will expand and
collapse the flexible wings depending on parade
conditions. Peace will be achieved through
visual pleasure and oral pacification.

150 MPH British Steam Powered Car

Unlike a steam locomotive, which uses a steam-powered injector system, the British Steam Car uses compressed-air-powered hydraulics to inject distilled water and pre-prime itself. The water is pumped into the start of 1.86 miles of tubing to develop three megawatts of heat to convert water into 750 F steam. This super-heated “dry” steam is then directed down the car via heavily lagged pipes and two enormous industrial steam valves, which act as throttles, and then into the two-stage turbine. “That’s where we turn pressure into velocity,” says Candy. The steam is injected into the turbine at over two times the speed of sound; under the assault, the turbine revolves at up to 13,000 rpm. The turbine drives the rear wheels via a conventional crown wheel and pinion. The vehicle turns 10.5 gallons of water a minute into super-heated steam at 40 times atmospheric pressure. More information here on the Hacked Gadgets Blog

Flying Art Causes Chaos in Switzerland

I saw this story at breitbart.com
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080811192637.nkspe7sd&show_article=1

Marine Worm Jaws = Cutting Edge Aerospace Technology

Researchers in California and New Hampshire report the first detailed characterization of the protein composition of the hard, fang-like jaws of a common marine worm. Their work could lead to the design of a new class of super-strong, lightweight materials for use as construction and repair materials for spacecraft, airplanes, and other applications.
In the new study, Chris C. Broomell and colleagues note that Nereis virens, also known as the sandworm or ragworm, is a burrowing marine worm found in shallow waters in the North Atlantic region. Researchers remain intrigued by the remarkable hardness of its jaws and long pincers, which rivals that of human teeth and exceed the hardness of many synthetic plastics. But little is known about the exact chemical composition of these structures.
Broomell and colleagues collected the jaws of 1,000 worms and analyzed their protein content using high-tech instrumentation. They found that the primary chemical in the jaws and pincers of the worm is a unique protein, named Nereis virens jaw protein-1 (Nvjp-1), which is rich in the amino acid histidine.The researchers also characterized the chemical conditions needed for its formation, such as the presence of zinc, which could allow researchers to create synthetic versions of this super-hard, lightweight material.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journal reference:
Broomell et al. Cutting Edge Structural Protein from the Jaws of Nereis virens. Biomacromolecules, 2008; 9 (6): 1669 DOI: 10.1021/bm800200a
Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.

UFOs Invade Seoul

Many lovely blinky lights in the Chungyo-Dong hardware/lighting district of Seoul.

Two more sightings in Seoul

Faceless "Aliens" Spotted In Crowds

With the blankest of blank expressions on their faces, these mysterious figures have been popping up in the most unlikely of places. The faceless mutants have a penchant for A-list celebrity bashes and have been spotted at Elton John's White tie ball and Harrods summer sale, opened by Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall.
With a membrane of skin stretched tightly over their eyes, noses and mouths, the alien-like figures were most recently snapped 'watching' a match perched on Murray Mount at Wimbledon.
Close inspection of the pictures rules out an alien invasion - small perforations around the eye areas of the masks allow the people beneath to see the world outside. But nobody knows who the faceless figures, who often appear as motionless couples are, or why they are turning up at high profile events.
Theories include the possibilities that they are limelight-seeking pranksters, performance artists or that they are at the centre of a viral marketing campaign for an as-yet unknown product of forthcoming horror film. Speculation has even arisen that the masks hide a pair of well-know faces, fed up with being harrassed by the paparazzi. This faceless figure even has his own driver, fuelling speculation that the man behind the mask may be a celebrity himself. One blogger wrote on the Moue Magazine website: "They probably aren’t just random people off of the street. "If it ends up being a pair of celebrities who have had it with being photographed all of the time and are staging a protest, I vow to support every project they appear on from now on."

We May All Be Aliens

Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday.

European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial. Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact. Both of the molecules identified, uracil and xanthine, "are present in our DNA and RNA," said lead author Zita Martins, a researcher at Imperial College London.

RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is another key part of the genetic coding that makes up our bodies. These molecules would also have been essential to the still-mysterious alchemy that somehow gave rise, some four billion years ago, to life itself. "We know that meteorites very similar to the Murchison meteorite, which is the one we analysed, were delivering the building blocks of life to Earth 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago," Martins told AFP in an interview. Competing theories suggest that nucleobases were synthesised closer to home, but Martins counters that the atmospheric conditions of early Earth would have rendered that process difficult or impossible. A team of European and US scientists showed that the two types of molecules in the Australian meteorite contained a heavy form of carbon -- carbon 13 -- which could only have been formed in space.

"We believe early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoric fragments for use in genetic coding, enabling them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations," Martins said. If so, this would have been the start of an evolutionary process leading over billions of years to all the flora and fauna -- including human beings -- in existence today.

The study, published in Earth Planetary Science Letters, also has implications for life on other planets. "Because meteorities represent leftover materials from the formation of the solar system, the key components of life -- including nucleobases --could be widespread in the cosmos," said co-author Mark Sephton, also at Imperial College London. "As more and more of life's raw materials are discovered in objects from space, the possibility of life springing forth wherever the right chemistry is present becomes more likely," he said. Uracil is an organic compound found in RNA, where it binds in a genetic base pair with another molecule, adenine. Xanthine is not directly part of RNA or DNA, but participates in a series of chemical reactions inside the RNA of cells.

The two types of nucleobases and the ratio of light-to-heavy carbon molecules were identified through gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, technologies that were not available during earlier analyses of the now-famous meteorite. Even so, said Martins, the process was extremely laborious and time-consuming, one reason it had not be carried out up to now by other scientists.

Solar Saucer designed by Scotty Whittaker

This large photovoltaic collector setup of 20 KW solar power will be part of the Entheon Village this year at Burning Man. Nice design.

Exploring Derelict Space Ship in Rare Soviet-style Sci Fi Film

Show Featuring Maggie Covert

Davide Balula

Davide Balula
Un air de fête
2003
Tourne disque, disque vynile 45Tours, ballon, hélium.
Env. 50 x 50 x 100 cm

Tom Ashcraft: Harnessing Wild Electricities from Outer Space

Artist Tom Ashcraft will embark on two public experiments attempting to receive and harness radio emissions from Jupiter's "C" region and "B" region, using modified radio-telescopes as receivers.

Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, June 23 and June 24, from 11pm to 1:30 am each night.
More information on his website: www.heliotown.com

Mysterious Forest Rings

It is a strange phenomenon: thousands of large, perfectly round "forest rings" dot the boreal landscape of northern Ontario. From the air, these mysterious light-coloured rings of stunted tree growth are clearly visible, but on the ground, you could walk right through them without noticing them. They range in diameter from 30 metres to 2 kilometres, with the average ring measuring about 91 metres across. Over 2,000 of these forest rings have been documented, but scientists estimate the actual number is more than 8,000. What causes these near-perfect circles in the forest?

Since they were discovered on aerial photos about 50 years ago, the rings have baffled biologists, geologists and foresters. Some explanations put a UFO or extraterrestrial spin on the phenomenon. Astronomers suggest the rings might be the result of meteor strikes. Prospectors wonder whether the formations signal diamond-bearing kimberlites, a type of igneous rock. Stew Hamilton, a Sudbury-based geochemist with the Sedimentary Geoscience Section of the Ontario Geological Survey, says forest rings are caused by giant, natural electrochemical cells — big centres of negative charges called reduced chimneys — that are frequently situated over metal or mineral deposits, or methane. (Courtesy Ontario MNR) "We have been working on the rings since 1998, and there have been many developments, but there are still many unanswered questions," says Stew Hamilton, a Sudbury-based geochemist with the Sedimentary Geoscience Section of the Ontario Geological Survey.

The Cheecka Ring is a ring measuring about 1 kilometre in diameter, located 20 km east of Hearst, Ont. Scientists believe it was formed by a natural gas deposit.

Hamilton first became interested in the rings in 1997 when Sudbury prospector and geologist Bob Komarechka asked him about the potential kimberlite link. Now he has some new theories about how the giant rings were created, and his paper discussing some of the strange electrical phenomena that occur over the rings has been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysics. According to Hamilton, the forest rings are caused by giant, naturally occurring electrochemical cells — big centres of negative charges (called reduced chimneys) that are frequently situated over metal or mineral deposits or methane (a natural gas source). Think of them as huge natural electrical batteries with a negative charge in carbonate soil and surrounded by oxygen that carries a positive charge. The current from the batteries — the negative charge — travels outward and where it meets the positive charge, acidic conditions are created that eat away at the carbonate soil, causing it to drop in a circular depression around the natural battery.

The origin of Ontario's methane-based forest rings, according to Hamilton's theory, lies in the glaciers and glacial lakes that at one time covered the province. As the glaciers began receding from northern Ontario about 10,000 years ago, they left behind a mix of clay and other glacial sediment.Bacteria began eating the dead plankton and other organic matter left in the clay, a process that can only last a few thousand years before the organic matter is consumed, a short time, geologically speaking. This produced methane, a chemical that is the principal component of natural gas. In the case of forest rings, the methane is released into the atmosphere partly through the depressions of the rings.

So why the perfectly formed circles? "Because force goes out in a circle," Hamilton says. "For example, throw a stick in the water. At first it makes a stick shape when it hits the water, then perfect circles go out from that. Electricity is just the same."Gordon Southam, a geo-microbiologist at the University of Western Ontario, has just begun working with Hamilton on the biogeochemical aspects of forest rings. "We debate back and forth on the various theories on forest ring formation. I find it extremely interesting any time that water-rock interactions release materials that support the growth of the biosphere; we're very interested in litho-trophic [rock-eating] bacteria," Southam says.

Rings in farmer's fields in Southern Ontario's Essex County, a few kilometres from the Michigan border, formed by oil deposits. (Courtesy Ontario MNR) "In the case of forest rings, they appear to create anoxic [oxygen-free] conditions that support methane-producing bacteria below ground and methane-oxidizing bacteria near the earth's surface." A map of forest rings in northeastern Ontario devised by Hamilton also seems to indicate that the creation of these anoxic conditions appears to be coinciding with permafrost melting, which is causing new activity in the biosphere.

Although northern Ontario has the highest concentration of forest rings, you can also find them in the Yukon, Quebec, Russia and Australia. "For years, we have been puzzled as to why Ontario has so many, and we now think we have some of the answers," Hamilton says. "We have measured the isotopic signature of natural gas in a number of rings, and it suggests the gas is very geologically young and is likely still being produced today and constantly escaping into the atmosphere. Northern Ontario has the youngest and most extensive glacial clay deposits in the world, and therefore we also have the most rings." He estimates 80 per cent to 85 per cent of the region's rings are methane-based, with the rest being a result of kimberlite; hydrogen sulfide (recognizable by its "rotten egg” smell); metal-based sources such as nickel, copper and zinc; or buried peat. These, too, are all sources of negative electrical charge and have a capacity to create similar electrical fields as methane.

"On the one hand, the rings are a large potential source of relatively clean natural gas. On the other hand, they are constantly venting methane into the atmosphere, which has a greenhouse gas equivalent that is more than 20 times that of carbon dioxide," said Hamilton.He is keen to see companies develop technology to extract the gas and use it as energy. "Extracting the gas would therefore be doubly beneficial and also fairly easy from a technical point of view."

"It is definitely not a UFO thing, crop circles, tree-killing fungus or meteors falling from the sky," Hamilton laughs. He does admit, though, that forest rings have "a million mysteries." For example, the electrical field found inside the forest rings is a puzzle that needs to be solved. "It shouldn't be there," Hamilton says. "Something is creating a huge electrical field, and we think it might be millions of chemical-eating micro-organisms in the soil."

Hamilton, University of Ottawa geochemist Kéiko H. Hattori (chair of the department of earth sciences) and graduate student Kerstin Brauneder are the only Canadian scientists currently studying forest rings. This summer, they will test their hypothesis by generating chemicals in test tubes and adding some forest ring micro-organisms (bacteria) to the chemicals. "To see a perfectly round forest ring in the middle of the forest is really very strange," said Brauneder, whose master's thesis is titled Origin and Distribution of Forest Ring-Related Methane. "This summer, Dr. Hamilton and I will be sampling soils over five forest rings near Timmins and Hearst. Together with Dr. Southam, we will try to recreate a small-scale forest ring phenomena in-vitro, in a test tube, to see where and how methane-producing microbial communities grow. Understanding the methane-cycle of the rings is important, because we are hoping the methane could eventually be used as a new energy source for isolated communities."

Calling the forest rings the "world's largest petri dish," Hamilton said the testing will be the first step to recreating, in the lab, the mysterious electrical field process. "Our hypothesis is that with the forest rings, millions of micro-organisms are creating a massive, low-voltage electrical field that causes their food, the chemicals, to come forward to them. The bacteria don't have to move — the food keeps coming to them along the electrical field they have created," explained Hamilton.
This, he said, also poses an intriguing question: "Are micro-organisms changing and modifying geology? It is a new paradigm for us. What science doesn't understand is the most interesting, and we're having a lot of fun working on the many pieces of the strange puzzle. This is beyond science fiction — it is unbelievable."
Original Article By Elle Andra-Warner

Colossal Flying Reptiles Ate Dinosaurs For Lunch

Scientists say that giant pterosaurs called Quetzalcoatlus had to stalk prey on land.

With a name like T. rex, you'd expect to be safe from even the fiercest paleo-bullies. Turns out, ancient flying reptiles could have snacked on Tyrannosaurus rex babies and other landlubbing runts of the dinosaur world. A new study reveals that a group of flying reptiles from the Age of Dinosaurs, 230 million to 65 million years ago, did not catch prey in flight, but rather stalked them on land. Until now, paleontologists pictured the so-called "winged lizards" or pterosaurs as skim-feeders. In this vision, the creatures would have flown over lakes and oceans grabbing fish from the water's surface, much as gulls do today. The new findings, detailed this week online in the journal PLoS ONE, don't ground the animals totally.

"In our hypothesis, flight is primarily a locomotive method," said co-researcher Mark Witton of the University of Portsmouth in England. "They're just using it to get from point A to point B. We think the majority of their lives, when they're feeding and reproducing, that's all being done on the ground rather than in the air." To uncover these feeding habits, Witton and Portsmouth colleague Darren Naish analyzed fossils of a group of toothless pterosaurs called azhdarchids, which are much larger on average than other pterosaurs. For example, one of the largest azhdarchids, Quetzalcoatlus, weighed about 550 pounds (250 kilograms) with a wingspan of more than 30 feet (10 meters) and a height comparable to a giraffe.

Witton and Naish learned that more than 50 percent of the azhdarchid fossils had been found inland. Other skeletal features, including long hind limbs and a stiff neck, also didn't fit the profile of a mud-prober or skim-feeder. "All the details of their anatomy, and the environment their fossils are found in, show that they made their living by walking around, reaching down to grab and pick up animals and other prey," Naish said.

A skim-feeder, such as a gull, trawls its lower jaw through the water, eventually smacking into a fish or shrimp and pulling it from the water. "Regardless of what they hit, the impact force drives the head and neck underneath the body and into the water, thus requiring a hugely flexible neck," Witton said. This is the case with gulls and pelicans (which are considered plunge divers), but an azhdarchid's neck, despite potentially reaching nearly 10 feet (3 meters) in length, was super stiff. "Whatever these animals were doing, it had to involve minimal neck action," Witton said.

Their tiny feet also ruled out wading in the water or probing the soft mud for food. "Some of these animals are absolutely enormous," Witton told LiveScience. "If you go wading out into this soft mud, and you weigh a quarter of a ton, and you've got these dinky little feet, you're going to just sink in."The reptile's head also was pretty lengthy, up to 10 feet (3 meters). So Witton said an azhdarchid would only have to dip its head part way to the ground, enough for the tip of its jaws to touch down, to hunt and feed on terrestrial prey. Back before they went extinct 65 million years ago during the event that also killed off non-avian dinosaurs, these pterosaurs could lunch on animals ranging from small birdlike Velicoraptors to T. rex babies to amphibians.

By Jeanna Bryner
Senior writer for livescience.com, through www.MSNBC.com

UFO Explodes Over Viet Nam

HANOI - An unidentified flying object exploded in mid-air over a southern Vietnamese island, state media said Wednesday, a day after Cambodia's air force retracted a report of a mysterious plane crash. The Vietnam News Agency said residents of Phu Quoc island, 10 km (6 miles) off the coast of the Cambodian province of Kampot, found shards of grey metal, including one 1.5 meters (1.5 yards) long. "The explosion happened at about 8 km (5 miles) above the ground, and perhaps it was a plane, but authorities could not identify whether it was a civil or military aircraft," VNA said in a report headlined "UFO explodes over Phu Quoc Island."Soldiers were sent out to look for wreckage and survivors, and local authorities contacted airlines in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, but received no reports of missing aircraft, the official state news agency added.
Villagers in Kampot said Tuesday that they had heard a loud explosion. Wednesday they told Reuters they had found small chunks of metal near the coastline. Kung Mony, deputy commander of Cambodia's Air Force, said Tuesday he had been told of a foreign plane crashing in Kampot province, but later backed off his claims of an aircraft accident.
(Writing by Grant McCool and Ed Cropley in Bangkok; Editing by Bill Tarrant for reuters.com)

Mythical Moth Rediscovered: Pulled From Spider's Web

Article by Steven McKenzie
Pulled from BBC Scotland news website

A moth found on only four previous occasions since 1853 has been rescued from a spider's web close to where it was first recorded. The black-winged and orange bodied Ethmia pyrausta is so rare it has gained almost mythical status, said Butterfly Conservation Scotland (BCS). It was spotted and photographed by Andy Scott and Margaret Currie. Their find was made near Loch Morie, Easter Ross, Highlands, close to the original specimen site. The moth was identified by experts Mark Young and Roy Leverton, who were leading a BCS workshop at Aigas Field Centre in Inverness-shire. Apart from the original 1853 specimen, only four others have ever been found in the UK. Two were found in 1996 on the top of Glas Maol in the Grampians with a further two found nearby. The caterpillars have never been found in Britain. BSC said prior to the Loch Morie find there were doubts that the species still lived in the Highlands. Mr Young said: "It is now up to us to try and find out where the moth breeds and to make sure that its habitat is safe."

Air Jellyfish

Artist/Geographer keeps his eyes on satellites.

Up in our darkened sky, sinister objects lurk.
They are not the vehicles of some alien life form bent on destroying humankind, though many do look like props from a sci-fi film. Some are so large they could engulf three football fields.
For four decades, the United States has been filling the outer reaches of our atmosphere with 189 reconnaissance satellites. And for several years, artist-geographer Trevor Paglen has been keeping his eye on them.
Complete SF Chronicle article HERE.

Tomas Saraceno

Tomas Saraceno
(Argentina, 1973)
As an architect Saraceno has for years been looking into the possibility of using large balloon-like constructions to enable the free circulation of persons and goods across the entire globe. With remarkable results.
More information and photos here (external site).
Interview with Tomas Saraceno here.

lightning is striking again

My plane was hit by lightning on my way back from California. There was a big thud, a lot of light, and the plane jolted. It hadn't really come up as an issue before:

Question

How is a plane protected from Lightning strikes?

Asked by: Sridhar Narayanan

Answer

Since the outer skin of most airplanes is primarily aluminum, which is a very good conductor of electricity; the secret to safe lightning hits is to allow the current to flow through the skin from the point of impact to some other point without interruption or diversion to the interior of the aircraft.

Estimates show that each commercial airliner averages one lighting hit per year but the last crash that was attributed to lightning was in 1967 when the fuel tank exploded, causing the plane to crash. Generally, the first contact with lightning is at an extremity...the nose or a wingtip. As the plane continues to fly through the areas of opposite charges, the lightning transits through the aircraft skin and exits through another extremity point, frequently the tail (as shown by Gauss's Law).

Another related problem with lightning is the effect it can have on computers and flight instruments. Shielding and surge suppressors insure that electrical transients do not threaten the on board avionics and the miles of electrical wiring found in modern aircraft. All components that are vital to the safe operation of commercial aircraft must be certified to meet the stringent regulations of the FAA for planes flying into the United States.

Answered by: Rich Uranis, B.S., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Gecko Found INSIDE Chicken Egg: A Fortean Mystery

If you are eating eggs for breakfast, put down that fork. The Australian Egg Corporation has expressed surprise at the discovery of a gecko inside a chicken egg. Darwin, Australia, doctor Peter Beaumont was cooking dinner when he cracked open the egg and found the dead gecko inside the shell.

Health authorities say the discovery is nothing to be alarmed about and it is being examined at a laboratory. The research and development program manager with the Egg Corporation, David Witcombe, says he has never heard of such a case before.

“Certainly the gecko wouldn’t have been ingested by the bird. It would be physically impossible for it to make its way from the digestive tract into the area where the egg’s formed.

“So it’s a case of the gecko actually making its way through the cloaca of the bird and onto the developing egg.”

Explosions on the Moon?

Not so long ago, anyone claiming to see flashes of light on the Moon would be viewed with deep suspicion by professional astronomers. Such reports were filed under "L" ... for lunatic. Not anymore. Over the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the Moon flashing at them not just once but one hundred times.

"They're explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the Moon," explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). "A typical blast is about as powerful as a few hundred pounds of TNT and can be photographed easily using a backyard telescope."

The impactor was a tiny fragment of extinct comet 2003 EH1. Every year in early January, the Earth-Moon system passes through a stream of debris from that comet, producing the well-known Quadrantid meteor shower. Here on Earth, Quadrantids disintegrate as flashes of light in the atmosphere; on the airless Moon they hit the ground and explode. "We started our monitoring program in late 2005 after NASA announced plans to return astronauts to the Moon," says team leader Rob Suggs of the MSFC. If people were going to be walking around up there, "it seemed like a good idea to measure how often the Moon was getting hit. Almost immediately, we detected a flash."

That first detection — "I'll never forget it," he says — came on Nov. 7, 2005, when a piece of Comet Encke about the size of a baseball hit Mare Imbrium. The resulting explosion produced a 7th magnitude flash, too dim for the naked eye but an easy target for the team's 10-inch telescope. A common question, says Cooke, is "how can something explode on the Moon? There's no oxygen up there."

These explosions don't require oxygen or combustion. Meteoroids hit the moon with tremendous kinetic energy, traveling 30,000 mph or faster. "At that speed, even a pebble can blast a crater several feet wide. The impact heats up rocks and soil on the lunar surface hot enough to glow like molten lava — hence the flash." During meteor showers such as the Quadrantids or Perseids, when the Moon passes through dense streams of cometary debris, the rate of lunar flashes can go as high as one per hour. Impacts subside when the Moon exits the stream, but curiously the rate never goes to zero. "Even when no meteor shower is active, we still see flashes," says Cooke.

These "off-shower" impacts come from a vast swarm of natural space junk littering the inner solar system. Bits of stray comet dust and chips off old asteroids pepper the Moon in small but ultimately significant numbers. Earth gets hit, too, which is why on any given night you can stand under a dark sky and see a few meteors per hour glide overhead — no meteor shower required. Over the course of a year, these random or "sporadic" impacts outnumber impacts from organized meteor showers by a ratio of approximately 2:1. "That's an important finding," says Suggs. "It means there's no time of year when the Moon is impact-free."

Fortunately, says Cooke, astronauts are in little danger. "The odds of a direct hit are negligible. If, however, we start building big lunar outposts with lots of surface area, we'll have to carefully consider these statistics and bear in mind the odds of a structure getting hit." Secondary impacts are the greater concern. When meteoroids strike the Moon, debris goes flying in all directions. A single meteoroid produces a spray consisting of thousands of "secondary" particles all traveling at bullet-like velocities. This could be a problem because, while the odds of a direct hit are low, the odds of a secondary hit may be significantly greater. "Secondary particles smaller than a millimeter could pierce a spacesuit," notes Cooke.

At present, no one knows how far and wide secondary particles travel. To get a handle on the problem, Cooke, Suggs and colleagues are shooting artificial meteoroids at simulated moon dust and measuring the spray. This work is being done at the Vertical Gun Range at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA. Meanwhile, back at the observatory, the team has upgraded their original 10-inch (25 cm) telescope to a pair of telescopes, one 14-inch (36 cm) and one 20-inch (51 cm), located at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. They've also established a new observing site in Georgia with a 14-inch telescope. Multiple telescopes allow double- and triple-checking of faint flashes and improve the statistical underpinnings of the survey.

"The Moon is still flashing," says Suggs. Indeed, during the writing of this story, three more impacts were detected, bringing the total to 103.

By Tony Phillips
Science@NASA
http://www.space.com.scienceastronomy/080521-moon-explosion.html

Strange Clouds Over China

Just two days before China's devastating earthquake, strange clouds appeared in the skies. Were these formations atmospheric signifiers of what was to come?

Swiss "Fusion Man" Flys Over Alps with Jet Propelled Wings

Why Did Blogger mess up the colors? I don't know, sorry....

May 14 2008: Yves Rossy, known as the 'Fusion Man,' flies with a jet-powered single wing over the Alps in Bex, Switzerland.Years ago, aviation enthusiast and inventor Yves Rossy dreamed of soaring through the air. "This flight was absolutely excellent," the extreme sports enthusiast said after touching down on an airfield near the eastern shore of Lake Geneva. Half an hour earlier Rossy had stepped out of the Swiss-built Pilatus Porter aircraft at 7,500 feet, unfolded the rigid 8-foot wings strapped to his back and dropped.Passing from free fall to a gentle glide, Rossy then triggered four jet turbines and accelerated to 186 miles an hour as a crowd on the mountaintop below gasped — then cheered.

His mother, who was among the spectators, told journalists she felt no fear. "He knows what he's doing," Paule Rossy said.Steering only with his body, Rossy dived, turned and soared again, flying what appeared to be effortless loops from one side of the Rhone valley to the other. At times he rose 2,600 feet before descending again.

"It's like a second skin," he later told reporters. "If I turn to the left, I fly left. If I nudge to the right, I go right."

Rossy then performed a stunt he had never before tried. After one last wave to the crowd, the rocket man tipped his wings, flipped onto his back and leveled out again, executing a perfect 360-degree roll that even a bird would find impossible.

"That was to impress the girls," he later admitted.Wednesday's five-minute flight nearly never happened. Rossy said his engineers worked until the last minute to fix one of the four kerosene-fueled engines that power his flight.He said he is ready now for a bigger challenge: crossing the English Channel later this year.The stunt, which will be shown on live television, will test his flying machine to the limit. Rossy said he plans to practice the 22-mile trip by flying between two hot-air balloons.

"I still haven't used the full potential," he said.Rossy told The Associated Press that one day he also hopes to fly through the Grand Canyon.To do this, he will have to fit his wings with bigger, more powerful jets to allow for greater maneuvering. The German-built model aircraft engines he uses already provide 200 pounds of thrust — enough to allow Rossy and his 120-pound flying suit to climb through the air.

"Physically, it's absolutely no stress," Rossy said. "It's like being on a motorbike." But on this ride, even the slightest movement can cause problems. Rossy said he has to focus hard on relaxing in the air, because "if you put tension on your body, you start to swing around." Should things go wrong — and Rossy says they have done more times than not — there's always a yellow handle to jettison the wings and unfold the parachute."I've had many 'whoops' moments," he said. "My safety is altitude."

Rossy — whose sponsors have dubbed him "Fusion Man" — says his form of human flight will remain the reserve of very few for now. The price and effort involved are simply too enormous, he says.So far Rossy and sponsors have poured more than 200,000 Swiss francs, or $190,000, and countless hours of labor into building the device. He would not estimate how much his device would cost should it ever be brought to market.

But, he believes similar jet-powered wings one day will be more widely available to experienced parachutists ready for the ultimate flying experience.That is, if they don't mind missing out on the breathtaking panorama above the Swiss Alps.
"I am so concentrated, I don't really enjoy the view," Rossy said.


The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Space Junk, lots and lots of space junk

Space, the final frontier to jettison our debris...?
Link to International Space Debris "Coordination" HERE

Link to a map about Space Junk HERE

U.F.O. art

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/subodh_gupta.htm

Lightning bolt appears above volcano

Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, some 30 kms (19 miles) north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile May 2, 2008. Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanos are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them. Picture taken May 2, 2008.REUTERS/Carlos Gutierrez (CHILE)

Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican's chief astronomer says that believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, says that the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes says that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures.

The interview was headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother." Funes said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90KSE100&show_article=1

NASA transonic tunnel

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1080.html

A wind tunnel that looks like open wings--

My Hero

http://www.lilienthal-museum.de/olma/home.htm

The Otto Lilienthal museum. The first man to achieve controlled flight.

Sydney Australia invaded by foam.

I cant tell if this is real or not, but they are claiming that back in august Australia had a mass of foam wash up on it's shores. There are theories that it might be made out of decomposed fish particles, ar some seaweed exceation.

To Austin

Thanks for posting these. They are really cool, and I may attempt to do something like that. I am still using the tunnel idea, but my project has changed a little bit from what I said it was in my last post, but these were good references for my project, and are something I hope I can use.

For Chris

I'm sorry I didn't get around to posting these earlier, I couldn't find any decent animations initially and then got distracted by my work. But here are a couple animations of the mandelbrot set. In parts of the set you'll see a sort of tunnel/worm whole like sequence, but since this is only a small portion of it it's rarely the focus of the animation. 

Mandelbrot Zoom

Mandelbrot -Zoom 2

Google-A-Minute

There are also other fractal sets- such as the Julia set- that when explored will contain sequences similar to that of the Mandelbrot set. 

Final Project

For my final project I am creating a video using a green screen. Both The video and music provoke a feeling of flying.

UFO show

You are invited to watch some dancin

Space tango. Powered by the force of their enormous gravitational attraction, two colliding galaxies known as the Antennae are crushing huge clouds of gas and dust into billions of new stars. This image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released 17 October, is considered the sharpest yet of a galactic merger. The bright blue areas are dense star-making clusters, the pink regions are hydrogen gas clouds, and the orange blobs to the left and right of center are the two cores of the original galaxies. (Photo: NASA/ESA/STScI)


Hey guys,
I hope yall are all doing well. I just wanted to give a heads up about my dancing final. I will be in class from 4-5:30 until I go reset the room and warm up dancing with Lev. Please come to Main 110 (the room between the restrooms and admissions) at 6. Thank you very much! See you tomm
a very nervous and excited Carrie

You are invited to watch some dancin

Space tango. Powered by the force of their enormous gravitational attraction, two colliding galaxies known as the Antennae are crushing huge clouds of gas and dust into billions of new stars. This image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released 17 October, is considered the sharpest yet of a galactic merger. The bright blue areas are dense star-making clusters, the pink regions are hydrogen gas clouds, and the orange blobs to the left and right of center are the two cores of the original galaxies. (Photo: NASA/ESA/STScI)


Hey guys,
I hope yall are all doing well. I just wanted to give a heads up about my dancing final. I will be in class from 4-5:30 until I go reset the room and warm up dancing with Lev. Please come to Main 110 (the room between the restrooms and admissions) at 6. Thank you very much! See you tomm
a very nervous and excited Carrie

Mystery Lights inside Mount Royal Station Building on MICA Campus. Students and faculty puzzled, but not alarmed.

flying out of this world; opening

Pictures From Flying Out Of THis World Show

UFO shapes

found fromhttp://www.disclose.tv/action/viewphoto/1344/shapes_of_ufo_s/

Most interesting ways that I have seen of describing the shapes of UFOs:

tomato
meat platter
tropical helmet
turtle
bottle with 2 necks
lamp shade
honey comb
electric bulb
jeep hood

(from Passport to Magonia by J Vallee)
half an egg
inverted mushroom

finding the distance of stars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

motion parallax, is the change of angular position of two observations of a single object relative to each other as seen by an observer, caused by the motion of the observer. Simply put, it is the apparent shift of an object against the background that is caused by a change in the observer's position. The term is derived from the Greek παραλλαγή (parallagé), meaning "alteration".

Parallax is often thought of as the 'apparent motion' of an object against a distant background because of a perspective shift, as seen in Figure 1. When viewed from Viewpoint A, the object appears to be closer to the blue square. When the viewpoint is changed to Viewpoint B, the object appears to have moved in front of the red square.

In astronomy, parallax is the only direct method by which distances to objects beyond the Solar System can be measured. The Hipparcos satellite has used the technique for over 100,000 nearby stars. This provides the basis for all other distance measurements in astronomy, the cosmic distance ladder.

Tomas Saraceno

Interview: Tomas Saraceno [Stefano Boeri and Hans Ulrich Obrist]http://my.opera.com/mildz/blog/show.dml/127050

flyingoutofthisworld: (Un)Identified Flying Object Student Exhibition at the Maryland Institute College of Art

Above: exhibition view, Paul Crump nitrogen bottle/jet pack sculpture in foreground
Above: exhibition view: Louis Shaffer alien plant/life form in foreground
Above: exhibition view, Maggie Covert artist book in foreground
Above: exhibition view, Austin Rocket installs the signage
Above: Louis Shaffer sculpture of alien plant/life form
Above: Melody Lin's custom designed and digitally printed fabric space suit modeled by the artist
Above: Paul Crump's wearable nitrogen fueled jet pack sculpture
Above: exhibition view Paul Crump in front of Chelsea Noggle's project on the Yakima Valley, Washington earthquake light phenomena and UFO sightings, in relation to her project on the mysterious disappearance of cryptozoologist, Celia Landano. Right: Maggie Covert's prints and artist book.
Above left: A.J. Farkas' pinhole telescope he used to make Van Dyke Brown photographs of the sun. Right: Chelsea Noggle's Yakima Valley project. Far right: Maggie Covert's artist book.
Above: A.J. Farkas' pinhole telescope camera and Van Dyke Brown photos of the sun.
Above: Alien Food Product.
Above: more alien food. Left to right: Kat Sotelo, Paul Crump, Maggie Covert, Katie Morton, Austin Rocket.
Above: Katie Morton's alien food products.
Above: Adam Farkas' creature.

Show participants: Chelsea Noggle, Maggie Covert, Kelly Shaw, Katie Morton, Adam Farkas, A.J. Farkas, Louis Shaffer, Austin Rocket, Melody Lin, Chris Raybourne, Matt Sears, Carrie Schneider, Emily Alves

Please post images of your work from the show. These are the only ones I took and sorry it doesn't represent every participant.

Project Or by Christoph Klemmt

Architect Christoph Klemmt has created Project Or, a vortex-shaped installation in a courtyard in Milan that reacts to sunlight. The installation is made up of photo-reactive segments that are translucent when in the shade but coloured when exposed to sunlight. he polygonal segments of the surface react to ultra-violet light, mapping the position and intensity of solar rays. When in the shade, the segments of OR are translucent white. However, when hit by sunlight they become coloured, flooding the space below with different hues of light. At night, OR transforms into an enormous ‘chandelier’, disseminating light into the surrounding courtyard, an atmospheric space for events and gatherings. The hues generated by the photoreactive surface are therefore indicators of changes in weather and daylight, a dynamic architectural tool that can be used on building exteriors. OR is skin, OR is shining, OR is the light OR the shade. OR is the first time that photoreactive technology has been used on an architectural scale. The ecological structure is a step in exploring the possibilities of photoreactive materials in the fields of furniture and design. The beauty of OR is its constant interaction with the elements. Each moment of the day is unique.

To Fly!

To Fly!

Experience the legendary IMAX film that millions have raved about for over 30-years. Watch the Earth drop away beneath you on an 1800s balloon ascent: rocket across the Arizona skies with the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels; soar on a hand glider off the coast of Hawaii; and blast off into space on a Saturn rocket. The incredible IMAX 5-story screen and 20,000 watts of sound will take you on a journey few pilots have experienced. To Fly' is the museum's first and most popular IMAX film (1976;27 minutes)

Check 

(http://www.nasm.si.edu/visit/theaters/index.cfm#NMB)

For times and Tickets

Hubble Space Telescope Lecture

Mario Livio, director of the Hubble Space Telescope will be giving a lecture this Saturday, April 12, at 2pm at the Walters Art Gallery, in the auditorium.

His lecture is entitled, "The Universe According to the Hubble Space Telescope" in correlation to the exhibit at the Walters, "Mapping the Cosmos."

Perfect!

flying out of this world: [Un]Identified Flying Objects! Installation

If for some reason you missed my emails, here's a friendly reminder about tomorrow:

Ceramics will be having a closing ceremony for their show tonight at 6:00. They have this evening and tonight to take care of their de-installation. All of the work will be out of the gallery by morning, EXCEPT for Eric Steiner's piece, because he has special permission to keep it in the space through Tuesday. Please please be mindful of the work and be very careful not to nudge or touch it while you are installing. It will be deinstalled sometime tomorrow.

We will be installing the show TOMORROW! Anyone that can meet at 11:00am please do so, so that we can get the walls constructed. Jesse Reid will be available to help us as well. It's important that we all work together and help each other so that the installation can come off without a hitch. If anyone needs special assistance in installing their work, please come at 11:00 when extra hands will be here. (The pedestals will also be arriving around this time.) Keep in mind that everything should be hung on Tuesday, and that AV equipment should be working. The show should be fully installed before Wednesday, please.

This is going to be an awesome show with a killer opening, if we all work together. Let's make it happen!

P.S. If you haven't done it yet, send me your wall text (name, title, medium)! The consequences will be most dire otherwise.... you won't get a label! Email me at cnoggle@gmail.com with questions

March 28, 2008—Giant sea stars or starfish that measure 24 inches (60 centimeters) across are held by Sadie Mills, left, and Niki Davey ofNew Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research on February 15, 2008. 

They and other researchers collected 30,000 sea creatures—many new to science—during a 35-day census in Antarctic waters in February and March, according to a March 26 announcement. 

living dinosaur is fastest evolving animal

Dave Hansford in Wellington, New Zealand

for National Geographic News

March 31, 2008

New Zealand's "living dinosaur," the tuatara, hasn't changed its look in millions of years. But the reptile is actually evolving faster than any other animal studied so far, new DNA analysis reveals.

Scientists recovered DNA from 8,000-year-old tuatara bones and compared it with DNA in blood samples from living tuatara. The modern species is the only surviving member of the order Sphenodontia, which flourished around 200 million years ago.

what makes you feel like you're flying?

Hey all,
tommorrow i'd like to record each of your voices telling me what makes you feel like you're flying. my plan is to edit all the responses and interpretations and set it to footage i took out the window of a plane from LA to baltimore. this is what i want to put in the show
see yall tommorrow- best of luck with all your projects
Carrie

pregnant man

www.malepregnancy.com

Flying Out of This World/Poster

Here's the ad for our group show. If I've left anything out, or spelled someone's name wrong, please speak up!

JW Dean's Abduction? of 1915

Excerpt from His Diary:::::::::::::::::::::::
Sept. 14, 1915--"I had an experience on the night of the 10th inst entirely new to me & it has had a prominent place in my thoughts ever since. I had retired at the usual time, was at my best in health and general bodily condition, and fell asleep promptly. In about an hour, I judge, I suddenly awoke with a sort of nervous chill. The most unaccountable twitching and tingling sensation ran over & through my whole body. The twitchings seem to race rapidly up & down and round & round in a manner very difficult to describe. No pain, no fever, no chilling--radically unlike any previous experience. At once I began to wonder what could have brought on such a malady, if so it might be termed, when--clairaudiently perhaps--I heard a voice remarkably clear, distinct & pleasant and the words in substance: 'This is all right. No harm will come to you. We have you in charge. Come.' Now the queer part of the whole strange affair is that I was not excited or disturbed in the least but promptly assented with the coolest indifference. Three persons young men, led me rapidly away. We neither walked nor rode but seemed to be borne along easily & quietly and by some invisible agency. Soon we stopped in the presence of quite a number of people. On the left was a group of middle aged, & older; on the right, children; near to and directly in front young men, my three guides being the nearest. All, excepting the older people, were eying me and smiling as if they were much pleased at something. Suddenly the leader of the three guides attracted my attention by waving his hand & nodding as much as to say, 'Look and see.' In wonderment I asked, mentally, Is this Spirit Land & are all these people spirits? The leader smilingly nodded in the affirmative, saying 'This is Spirit Land & these people you see are indeed spirits.' We then returned and I was soon myself again, the peculiar tingling sensation having entirely ceased. Now most will say that this unique experience was a dream--a dream & nothing more. Perhaps it was but it was a long way out of the ordinary. Anyway the strange bit of experience has dominated my thoughts ever since and like Banquo's ghost will not down. So it occurred to me that making a record of it in these pages might tend to aid me in relieving the mind somewhat of almost constantly trying to make something or nothing of the strange affair."

SPWeatherStation Art Installation in Queens, NY

SP Weather Station is an artist-run homemade weather station in Long Island City, Queens. [installation!] It will publish the SP Weather Report, a regular printed document available by mail subscription (in a while). Weather data will be collected at regular intervals and made available to guest interpreters, who pair this weather data with their own personal record of the time period in question. The format is open-ended; interpreters may choose to record aspects of their daily life that are directly affected by local weather, or they can expand on the possibilities of what pairing a weather report with a personal report might mean.
SP Weather Station builds on the existing international phenomenon of Personal Weather Stations. Ham weather station enthusiasts worldwide combine DIY analogue technology with organized web forums for collecting and analyzing data, such as wunderground.com (resource links on this site to the right). Although weather station hobbyists are widespread, by and large recording and processing weather data is the domain of high-tech centers and commercial enterprises.
By recording our neighborhood’s environmental conditions, we want to participate in and add to some of the many ways people have, throughout history, made their own weather observations. We are interested in combining new and historical technologies, and in how individuals relate to broader systems and patterns.
S.P. Weather Station is a collaborative project by Heidi Neilson and Natalie Campbell,
and is another exciting facet of S.P. Stationers Group

hovercraft

instructions!

Ferrofluid

Ferrofluid is a magnetic liquid. I will link a reliable supplier of ferrofluid on del.icio.us. 

slug eating flower

When out of context or scale, anything is alien and beautiful.

aliens from the garden

Greetings From the Roswell International UFO Museum and Research Center

Well, if you think you believe in UFOs you just might decide otherwise after visiting this museum. (take a virtual tour on their twinkling wesbsite: http://www.roswellufomuseum.com/Tour/entrance.html) But despite the pegboard walls, foamcore displays, amateur models, and an overabundance of tourist memorabilia, The Roswell UFO Museum and Library holds a very special place in my heart.

Snow Flurries, Bacteria Likely

By Christopher Joyce

Listen Now [3 min 17 sec] add to playlist

Theo Allofs

New research finds that a large portion of the atmosphere's ice particles form around bits of bacteria.

Shawn Doyle, Brent Christner, LSU

Top, an ice crystal lattice that was formed in the laboratory from bacterial culture. Bottom, Pseudomonas syringae cells, stained green, trapped within individual ice crystals.
Brent Christner, lead author of the study, demonstrates the researchers' mode of transportation in the field.All Things Considered, March 3, 2008 · Next time you're in a snowstorm, look up — and get a face-full of bacteria. It turns out there are bacteria up in the clouds, and some of them actually create ice crystals.
The inspiration for this research started in Montana. Brent Christner had a colleague there who was puzzled by some nasty plant bacteria that kept infecting his wheat crops. No matter what he did, he couldn't get rid of them. He suspected they might be airborne. So, Christner says, his friend cooked up a strange experiment involving a petri dish and an airplane.
He flew up in the airplane, "opened a window and held a petri plate outside," Christner explains. And in fact, bacteria grew. The bacteria — which normally live on plants — were falling out of the sky. That was over 20 years ago. Christner went on to become a microbiologist himself, currently at Louisiana State University, and also an expert in ice and snow. He knew that at certain temperatures, particles floating in the clouds cause water vapor to crystallize around them. And he remembered the flying bacteria.

"It really intrigued me ... the idea that if these bacteria were blown into the atmosphere and actually got into a cloud that they could induce precipitation," Christner says.
So Christner packed up his skis and went looking. He collected snow and ice and melted it down. Sure enough, he found the particles — or "nucleators," as they're known among ice experts — and was surprised to realize that the most active ones were bits of bacteria.
"In every sample that we've looked at we've found them," he says. He found these ice-bugs all over the place — France, Montana, the Yukon. And in some pretty unlikely places.
"We analyzed fresh snowfall from places like Antarctica where there aren't any plants around," Christner says. "They were still present."
Christner says these bacteria have a special protein that gives them their ice-making powers.
"It's a protein that mimics the lattice of an ice crystal," he explains. "So it enhances ice crystal formation."
In fact, there are several kinds of bacteria floating around in the sky that could be making snow or even rain, according to Steven Lindow, a plant scientist at University of California, Berkeley. He says scientists have suspected these bacteria may be using the atmosphere like an aerial freeway. "They could leave plants, reach the upper atmosphere, (and) become ingrained in atmospheric particles that would fall later as rain or snow," Lindow says. "This would bring them back to earth perhaps even as raindrops onto a new plant where they could find a new home and start the cycle again." He says the research, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Science, helps confirm that idea. Brent Christner adds that the findings pose an interesting possibility. For example, people might consider growing plants that harbor these bacteria in drought-prone places — in essence, he says, using a green thumb to make it rain.

Sunspot Cycle

Aerogels are engineered compounds which are 99.8% air, and are known as the lightest solid known to man. The most common type is a silica based compound which is molecularly very close to glass. They have a texture similar to that of styrfoam, and florist green foam, but if they are placed under enough direct pressure, such as squeezing it to hard it will shatter like glass. NASA is currently researching them for their insulation properties, while also imploying them to catch "stardust" particles.

Moller skycars!!

Researcher, and manufacturer of flying cars. He's had some trouble with insurance companyies not letting adequetly test his vehicles, but they are all real. Very George Jetson.

Here is a link to his company's website.... http://www.moller.com/skycar.htm

Chelsea, Michel & Elizabeth Falling/Flying on a John Chamberlain Sculpture at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX

For Paul: Your Austrian Twin

Here is some work by David Moises, who is awesome.

"Flying Carpet", 2004, hovercraft with leafblower engine


"A Rocket Named Vertigo", 2007, A water kettle gets turned into a rocket according to the principle of bottlerockets. The vessel had a total volume of 350 litres.

http://davidmoises.com/work/images/rakete+.mov

Bioluminescence

Photo of man swimming in waters filled with bioluminescent microorganisms in Puerto Mosquito Bay in Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.

More info and photos HERE.
Many links to bioluminescence HERE.
Latz Laboratory of Scripps Institute of Oceanography bioluminescence link HERE.

VIdeo: Cloud Streets

This video — a follow-up to a previous post about strange cloud formations seen over the Sea of Okhotsk last summer — provides a rare close-up bird’s-eye view of cloud streets, which are created when convection currents cut low-lying cumulus into long, clean strips. According to the video narration, these clouds floated just over the sea surface, stood 300 meters tall and stretched for over 100 kilometers.

The Bear

Hey all - check out Paul's blog, The Bear!
http://bearcrump.blogspot.com/

mica spring fashion show

a sneak preview of one of my garments.

My inspirations come from underwater aesthetics but playing with the transcendence of the known and the otherworldly.

Date of Show: April 18th 1008

Guandu

Karin Van der Molen, "In My Dreams I Can Fly"
for Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival at Guandu Nature Park in Taipei City.

If anyone finds anything exciting about the artist or the piece, I'd be very interested--I could only find a limited amount of information...

Astronaut Encounters

Here is some information on alien encounters by Astronauts. The information is from www.ufoevidence.org

US experience.

Across the Atlantic in America the US space programme brought its own spate of curious incidents. In 1966 two bright red glowing objects captured the attention of astronauts Young and Collins as they circled the Earth. At the time they had ventured further into space than any other human.. Suddenly both astronauts were amazed to find they were no longer alone. Two bright red glowing objects now occupied the same orbital path. The astronauts immediately informed Mission Control, who in turn requested further information. In their words: "If you can get a bearing maybe we can track them down."! Just at that particular moment astronaut Young radios back: "They just disappeared...."!

The official verdict attributed the sighting to space junk discarded from an unmanned Saturn rocket earlier that month. A cosy explanation, but one that fails to explain the erratic movements of the objects as they left orbit and disappeared so quickly. The astronauts were adamant these were not stars and it is difficult to image what man-made device of that time could emit a glowing red light so far out there in space!


The Hubble enigma.

An instance of public space transmission being cut in the face of embarrassing circumstances occurred quite recently on a Space Shuttle mission to repair the Hubble space telescope. The incident which was broadcast on a special edition of Strange but True, contains audio exerpts of astronauts puzzled by strange flashing lights seen moving around the Space Shuttle on February 18th of this year. Shown to a background picture of Mission Control, the astronauts can be heard talking routinely to one another before one of them cries out: "What a flash! I saw a light flash.....there it is again"!

So unusual is the incident that one astronaut imagines he is seeing things, but his companion then confirms the sighting. Seconds later one of them observes: "There's two of them.....there's another one. What are they"? Apparently the flashing lights continue. One of the astronauts makes a joke about them: " Who'd be taking pictures"? he wonders. The other responds: "It's just gone past in front of us . Further lights! Gone up!"

At this point the picture shows a supervisor stride across to the Mission Control director and both pictures and sound terminate abruptly. The studio discussion on the incident has one "expert" believe that at the time of the incident the two astronauts are actually inside the Shuttle, unable to see out, and that the lights are LED's on a control panel. This rather naive explanation fails to account for the fact that in the words of the astronauts the lights are most definitely moving. Their genuine surprise suggests this is a situation they have never encountered before, and one of the astronauts actually questions whether he is seeing things. The fact is that whatever they are looking at is quite obviously more than just a pair of malfunctioning diodes on a control panel. Interestingly NASA declined to comment on the incident.

abnormal = normal + normal

As water becomes more and more scarce, an amazing niche has appeared and quickly been filled: grass painting. It might sound ridiculous but there are actually businesses that paint grass professionally. The idea of the green lawn, it would seem, really is tied into many Americans’ dreams of the single family house with its picket fences.

Grass photography takes advantage of that unique property of living things: growth and change over time. By planting a canvas and then selectively allowing light through, grass photographers create grass images that are at once richly textured and inherently temporary.

Green art and environmental design are often thought of as pragmatic strategies for promoting sustainability such as guerilla gardening. However, these terms can also refer to a variety of creative art from colorful plantings to amazing living walls. Here are seven examples of green creativity that involve alternative uses of natural materials.




http://weburbanist.com/2007/11/05/painting-the-town-green-7-examples-of-bizarre-and-amazing-plant-grass-and-moss-art/

www.mjt.org/exhibits/hagop/hagop1.html

here is hagop sandaldjian

Martian Alphabet

Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art

More info HERE.
Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art
6 Mar - 18 May/08
Barbican Art Gallery, London
Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art presents contemporary art works under the fictional rubric of a museum collection conceived by and designed for extraterrestrials. This ambitious, playful and irreverent exhibition features 115 artists and more than 175 works, primarily sculptures along with mixed media, video, photography and works on paper. Artists range from emerging to internationally recognised figures, including Joseph Beuys, Cai Guo-Qiang, Maurizio Cattelan, Jimmie Durham, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ryan Gander, Mona Hatoum, Susan Hiller, Damien Hirst, Brian Jungen, Dr. Lakra, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, John McCracken, Bruce Nauman, Mike Nelson, Cornelia Parker, Sigmar Polke, Ugo Rondinone, Daniel Spoerri, Haim Steinbach, Francis Upritchard, Jeffrey Vallance, Andy Warhol and Rebecca Warren.

This exhibition is partly inspired by the first chapter of Thierry de Duve’s Kant after Duchamp, in which an imaginary anthropologist from outer space sets out to inventory ‘all that is called art by humans’. Adopting a pseudo-anthropological approach, the Museum employs eccentric taxonomies and surprising juxtapositions. The fictitious and humorous Martian perspective opens up contemporary art to fresh interpretations and allows for its reassessment from an alien standpoint, thus mimicking the way that Western anthropologists historically interpreted non-Western cultures through foreign eyes. Looking at contemporary art as though from outer space offers the potential to make the familiar strange and to turn the dominant Euro-American art tradition into the ‘Other’. Curated by Francesco Manacorda and Lydia Yee.
Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated publication, which takes the form of a volume of an encyclopaedia with an eccentric classification system. Including essays by the curators and a fictional account by acclaimed novelist Tom McCarthy.

Films from Another Planet
To complement Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art landing in Barbican Art Gallery, we present a season of films from outer space to welcome our alien friends. Visit http://www.barbican.org.uk/film
Close Encounters
Join a host of artists, speakers, commentators and curators for Close Encounter talks.
Visit http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery for more details on all the events.

flying

hello all

if you would like to tell me what makes you feel like you're flying i would love to hear it
i love conversations, i can make you tea, i live on mount royal
you can blog-me-back or email me carriebelle1@aol.com or call me 832 372 9476

also if you would like to go to a milonga or to rock climbing let me know

carrie

PERM ABNORMAL ZONE: First UFO sanctuary opens in Russia

20.02.2008 Source: Pravda.Ru

The center of abnormal triangle is situated in the middle of Ural taiga in the place called Molebka, 125 miles away from Perm.
The sanctuary is going to have a monument to Russian alien in the center. They say, it is going to be done by one famous Russian sculptor. A UFO museum and an observatory are going to be situated nearby. The cupola of the headquarters will look like the flying plate. The sanctuary administration is going to spend 5 million dollars for the project. 70 % of the sum will be donated by Region Administration, the rest is planned to be invested by local investors. UFO hunters will be placed in comfortable cottages for 20 – 40 dollars per person. Consider that 2 days in American UFO sanctuary “Zone 51”, NV, costs 500 dollars per person. Sanctuary administration plans to receive up to 500 tourists monthly. Perm region Minister of trade Elena Gilyazova likes the idea of the UFO sanctuary. “Molebka is a famous and popular place with its rich history. It would be inefficient not to use this town as a tourist attraction. ”People will keep on visiting Molebka, whether we like it or not. Every year 450 thousand tourists visit Perm region, half heading for abnormal zone”.

Perm abnormal zone (known also as M – triangle, Perm triangle and M - zone) is situated on the left bank of the river Silva between the villages Molebka and Kamenka on the border of Sverdlovskaay and Permskaya region. It is famous for a lot of abnormal events going on there. The zone occupies about 44 miles. A lot of mythological legends spread around Molebskaya zone. They offer explanations of the mysteries going on in this place, descriptions of people meeting aliens and even talks about the “Gate to Shambala” that is situated on one of the hills.

Balance

 Like a bird constructing a nest from trash and twigs, the universe collects debris from the surrounding space to form new planets. 

 I was thinking about this while working on my video piece. I had been staring at static for months, trying to from whole from all the tiny pieces of noise. I thought how alike humans and  the universe are.  Reproduction, technology, medical science. Even our ideas are made from pieces of information we collect from out environment.

 While the universe tries to make sense of itself, we (on a much smaller scale) try to make sense of our existence.

  Even with simple things like how to tell a dog from a cat. If we we were to imagine our thoughts as galaxies we may represent the idea of  "dog" and "cat" as two separate planets, sharing a galaxy with other house pets, such as fish, gerbils, so on. 

 Problem solving allows our mental planets to gain and lose mass as we gather new information. Balance is how most answers are discovered/justified . For something to be hot their must be cold, to find an unknown you solve for zero, ant eaters can not survive without ants. Balance creates order, without it we are left with confusion, debris, and chaos. However, perfect balance could mean (solving for zero) non-existence.

   My video is an attempt to articulate these ideas. If anyone has any suggestions for the sound or have something else to add, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. 

UFO sighting 3/6/08: A Family Affair

Photoshop rendition of Tristan's UFO?
I got an interesting phonecall from my brother Tristan just last night, regarding a puzzling experience he had on Thursday evening around 8:30pm. My brother is a freshman in college, and still lives at my home in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He was taking the garbage out to the end of our driveway (quite a distance from our house), when he heard a strange crackling sound.

"First I looked behind me and I didn't see anything, so I kept walking. Then I saw an orange light, really fast, like a flash of light, and I looked up in the sky and there was this ring of orange light hovering up there. I dropped the garbage and just stood there looking at it...I could see an airplane flying in the sky as well, and I could see the blinking light in the sky go right behind the ring, so I knew it was a solid object. I watched it for a couple of seconds, and the center of the ring suddenly lit up orange. It hovered for about 3 seconds like that, and then I saw the whole thing shutter, before it sped off over Brenneman's house. It blinked out, the lights went out and it disappeared even though it hadn't gone far enough to be to the horizon yet...it was invisible. I was still standing there shocked when I realized it had left a trail of orange light, I mean you could still see it lightly glowing where it had been and along its path...I ran back to the house to get someone but the glow faded before anyone else could see it...It didn't really scare me, I don't know why. It just, like mesmerized me. I felt like it darted away because it knew I seen it."

My brother told me about his exerience in detail, though he was not unnerved by it. Tristan said he actually felt priveleged in seeing it. I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous. Oddly enough, my mother saw something strange at nearly the same spot when I was a child. She had went out late at night to light the pilot light in the greenhouse and encountered an orange fireball shooting throught the sky.

CONSPIRACY INSECTS

(reposted from BLDGBLOG)A Steam Insect by sculptor Christopher Conte; photo by Amanda Dutton/Synesthesia Photo
"The next time a moth alights on your window sill," New Scientist warns, "watch what you say. Sure, it may look like an innocent visitor, irresistibly drawn to the light in your room, but it could actually be a spy – one of a new generation of cyborg insects with implants wired into their nerves to allow remote control of their movement."

A Battery Powered Microbotic Insect by sculptor Christopher Conte

The sculptor who made these insect robots above, Christopher Conte, began taking college art classes at age 6 on the recommendation of his first-grade teacher! After having completed a BFA at Pratt, he makes prosthetic limbs as well as sculptures. His website: christopherconte.com

More UFOs in Religious Paintings...

Baptism of Jesus by Aert De Gelder in about 1710 AD


17th century fresco now located in the Svetishoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta, Georgia.


These next two objects are from part of a fresco entitled "The Crucifixion" painted in 1350 AD. They are located above the altar at the Visoki Decani Monestary in Kosovo, Yugoslavia.




The Annunciation by Carlo Crivelli in 1486 AD.

Spielberg launching social network for UFO and paranormal buffs

TechCrunch reports a rumor that Steven Spielberg is readying a new social network for people who are interested in unusual and/or paranormal phenomena like UFOs and ghosts. According to the TechCrunch post, "the new social network may also have original video content investigating alleged ghosts and UFO stories." This has the potential to be very interesting as Spielberg has had a lifelong interest in this topic. Spielberg has apparently had at least one paranormal experience himself. There are stories of him staying in a hotel called Excelsior House and being so frightened by ghosts that he fled the room and moved 20 miles away. We’ve also heard anecdotes about Spielberg seeing the ghost of a dead relative repeatedly as a child. Whether based in reality or the product of an exceptional imagination, these experiences may have had an impact on his life’s work and this upcoming social network.

Cool animation: Miniscule - SPider

Released to the Sky

Artist Caroline Woolard: Five years of hair released by ballon launch.
More info HERE on her blog.

what we consider to be alien

I accidentally stumbled upon this--I think it's very exciting!



These are the two videos I was talking about in class-- Thinking about not just flight but how we see difference. How do we experience "the other"? These are humans who are considered to be otherworldly and alien.

Propeller Scooter

Jet Powered Citroen DS

From movie, "Fantoma"

Aerocar 2

Dave Major's Propeller Car

Lawnchair Larry: Man flies to 16,000 feet in lawnchair outfitted with weatherballons

According to published reports, Walters was employed as a truck driver in Southern California. On July 2, 1982, he fastened 42 surplus balloons to a lawn chair and launched from his girlfriend's San Pedro home. He carried various supplies with him as well as a CB radio and a BB gun to shoot balloons one at a time to descend. He didn't realize how powerful the buoyancy of the balloons was. When he cut a rope holding him to terra firma, he took off with such a jolt that another anchor rope broke under the stress and he shot upward so quickly that his eyeglasses flew to the ground. He floated around the L.A. basin for several hours and reached altitudes of up to 16,000 feet. According to an article in the New York Times the next day, Walters was spotted by pilots from both TWA and Delta Airlines. It was cold at 16,000 feet and he started shooting some of his balloons to descend, but dropped his BB gun and had to wait for his rig to come down on its own. He landed in a residential neighborhood in Long Beach where got tangled in some power lines, causing a power blackout. He told reporters that his weather balloon flight had been a dream of more than 20 years. Larry Walters died eleven years after his flight from what the Los Angeles Times described as a self-inflected gunshot wound.

More information on Lawnchair Larry's flight here
And here

Art on the Moon

Craig Kalpakjian

Via RECKON: http://reckon.vox.com/library/post/art-on-the-moon.html

In 2003, Craig Kalpakjian proposed a series of Earthworks-style drawings that would be executed on the surface of the moon, like the Nazca Lines or 60's bad boys Michael Heizer and Dennis Oppenheim's desert drawings. He called them Moonworks.

More information on the Moon Museum on the Reckon.vox.com link above, with drawings by six leading contemporary artists of the day: Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros, Forrest "Frosty" Myers, Claes Oldenburg, and John Chamberlain. The Moon Museum was supposedly installed on the moon in 1969 as part of the Apollo 12 mission.

The Secret Life of Clouds: CloudSat

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cloudsat/news/secret_clouds.html

The Secret Life of Clouds: New Findings From NASA's CloudSat and A-Train12.12.07

A little more than a year and a half into its primary mission, NASA's CloudSat satellite, working in tandem with the other Earth-observing satellites in NASA's "A-Train," is now yielding a treasure trove of new data that are helping scientists better understand the enormous influence clouds have on Earth's weather, climate and energy balance. Researchers present results that include discovery of a link between observed decreases in polar clouds last summer and a corresponding loss of Arctic sea ice; surprising new global estimates of how frequently clouds rain over Earth's oceans that suggest the need to reassess the intensity of Earth's water cycle and its impact on climate models; and the first global evidence that the small aerosol particles in our atmosphere may be polluting clouds, making them more reflective.

Related Links:

> CloudSat/CALIPSO Launch Press Kit 1.9 Mb (PDF)
> Pre-Launch Audio Clips
> CloudSat Fact Sheet (437Kb - PDF)
> Science Writers' Guide: CALIPSO, CloudSat, GRACE (2.6Mb - PDF)
> Aerosols: More Than Meets the Eye (951Kb - PDF)
> The Importance of Understanding Clouds (449Kb - PDF)
> The Balance of Power in the Earth-Sun System (605Kb - PDF)

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aim/mystery_clouds.html

Weather Permitting

http://www.weatherpermitting.org/index.htm

the first hot air balloons

hot air balloons

The history of the world took a strange and epoch-making turn on 21st November 1783. For it was on that day that human beings first voyaged through the air and landed safely to tell the tale. The feat was greeted with amazement and admiration and the air age was born  one hundred and twenty years before the Wright brothers flew their powered aeroplane at Kitty Hawk. The balloon was invented in its practical form by the brothers Montgolfiere, papermakers at Annonay, near Lyons. After making paper bags and seeing them rise over the kitchen fire, they build a bigger model and launched it in public in 1783. Then they came to Paris in the same year and constructed their full-scale balloons to carry up animals (19th September) and then human travellers. At first they cautiously tested their inhabited vehicle when safely tethered. Then an order from the king decreed that criminals should be the world's first aeronauts. But this was happily rescinded and two volunteers were found in physician Pilatre de Rozier (as pilot) and the Marquis d'Arlandes, who thus became the first airmen of history. The ascent, as the engravings shows, took place in the gardens of the Chateau de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne and ended safely after a flight over Paris of five and a half miles, which lasted for twenty-five minutes. The balloon was magnificently decorated in blue and gold with the signs of the zodiac round the crown and round the equator the intertwined royal cipher  alternative with the head of the sun-god Apollo surrounded by rays. The hot air balloon or Montgolfiere as this type came to be called was first suspended limp between the two masts seen here. A fire was then lit beneath the hole in the platform and the balloon was inflated. At the last minute, a brazier was slung inside the neck so that heat could be maintained during the voyage. The two aeronauts stood in the circular gallery round the neck and could stoke or damp down the brazier through portholes. In the same year, 1783, was also invented by Professor J A C Charles, the hydrogen balloon, which soon became the most practical aerial vehicle and was know as the Charliere. This was the type of balloon, which, with few alterations, has persisted until our own day, using hydrogen, coal gas or helium as the lifting medium. The main visual characteristics of the Charliere were the envelope (gas-bag) and the car or basket, which was suspended from a net, which enveloped the bag above.

Mysterious red cells might be aliens

By Jebediah Reed

Scientists have yet to identify these unusual red particles.As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens.In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space.Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .)So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India.

If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

Last winter, Louis sent some of his samples to astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe and his colleagues at Cardiff University in Wales, who are now attempting to replicate his experiments; Wickramasinghe expects to publish his initial findings later this year. Meanwhile, more down-to-earth theories abound. One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the "blood rains" on algae. Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats. Louis and his colleagues dismiss all these theories, pointing to the fact that both algae and fungus possess DNA and that blood cells have thin walls and die quickly when exposed to water and air.
More important, they argue, blood cells don't replicate. "We've already got some stunning pictures -- transmission electron micrographs -- of these cells sliced in the middle," Wickramasinghe says. "We see them budding, with little daughter cells inside the big cells."
Louis's theory holds special appeal for Wickramasinghe. A quarter of a century ago, he co-authored the modern theory of panspermia, which posits that bacteria-riddled space rocks seeded life on Earth.
"If it's true that life was introduced by comets four billion years ago," the astronomer says, "one would expect that microorganisms are still injected into our environment from time to time. This could be one of those events."
The next significant step, explains University of Sheffield microbiologist Milton Wainwright, who is part of another British team now studying Louis's samples, is to confirm whether the cells truly lack DNA. So far, one preliminary DNA test has come back positive.
"Life as we know it must contain DNA, or it's not life," he says. "But even if this organism proves to be an anomaly, the absence of DNA wouldn't necessarily mean it's extraterrestrial."
Louis and Wickramasinghe are planning further experiments to test the cells for specific carbon isotopes. If the results fall outside the norms for life on Earth, it would be powerful new evidence for Louis's idea, of which even Louis himself remains skeptical.

Nazca Lines

a photo gallery: http://www.galenfrysinger.com/nazca_lines.htm

Nazca Lines

photo gallery: http://www.galenfrysinger.com/nazca_lines.htm

museum of anomalous animals

http://sow.ggnet.co.jp/ex/information.htm

It's all in japanese, but just click on any link and you'll definately be surprised.

Falling out of this world: The Mystery of the Flying Moose

Article taken from : Anchorage Daily News, February 12. 2008.
“Falling moose nearly takes out trooper: Animal plunges to its death off Seward Highway cliff,” ~ by Beth Bragg

We’ve seen the highway signs that warn of falling rocks, and we’ve seen the ones that warn of moose crossing.
Now Howard Peterson of the Alaska State Troopers wonders if we need a new sign: Watch for falling moose.

A swing-shift trooper based in Girdwood, Peterson was cruising the Seward Highway the night of Feb. 2 a couple miles north of McHugh Creek when something big and black fell from the sky, landing about 20 feet from his car.

“Falling rock!” he thought, ready to steer clear if it bounced onto the highway.
When the rock didn’t roll or shatter, Peterson’s brain came up with a crazy image: “Falling moose?”

An adult moose, wandering rocky terrain more suitable to the Dall sheep that populate it, plunged to its death from the tall cliffs that hug a highway famous for its scenery and wildlife. The animal landed on the side of the road just a few yards in front of Peterson, who figures it fell 150 feet, maybe farther. He snapped a couple of photos and called one of the charities that salvage road kill to tell them there was a moose available at Mile 113 .

Then he started wondering what happened. Did the moose jump? “How would you say it — moose-icide? He probably thought he was the only moose, with all those sheep around,” Peterson said. More likely, though, something spooked the moose and it fell. It was windy that night, Peterson said, so maybe a gust startled it. Or maybe the moose merely misstepped.

“I’m sure the moose didn’t jump,” state wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott said. “They occasionally have bad days like the rest of us. They slip and fall. Maybe he was reaching for a branch and the snow just gave way.” In his years on the job, Sinnott has seen many moose die in many ways. He’s heard tales of them breaking through ice and drowning, jumping off railroad bridges at the sound of a train, falling off small banks. Once he saw the remains of two bulls that died together during a rutting battle when their antlers got hooked together by a single piece of barbed wire. But a plunge from a tall cliff? Sinnott doesn’t think it happens often.

In 1995, a moose calf slipped off a cliff and fell 100 feet to its death in nearly the same spot, but flying moose remain an oddity. As for Peterson, he’s been a trooper for five years and has seen lots of things fall from cliffs while on patrol — rocks, snow, mud, cars. Cars? Yes, cars: “I used to work in the Valley,” he said, explanation enough.

But he always figured moose held steadfastly to the earth. He knows better now.

“They can fly and they can land,” he said. “Just not very well.”

DIY flying things on MAKE magazine blog

There are some good things on this flying link from the MAKE magazine blog:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/flying/

What is Lift?

Lift

flying machines

I'm not sure if anyone's found this page yet- it's been buried in my bookmarks for about a year now. It's a timeline of early flying machines, with information on each one, excellent pictures, and quite a few links. A gold mine, really.

homemade hot air balloon

http://solospirit.wustl.edu/solospirit2/education/ballooning/makeone.html

I've seen these done with candles, too. The only problem with that is that once it's flying, you really have no control over where it goes, which is problematic when you consider the risk of it catching fire.

Gustave Whitehead: Aviation Pioneer

"Two years, four months and three days before the successful flights of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, a birdlike monoplane took to the air at early dawn on August 14, 1901, near Bridgeport, Connecticut, carrying its inventor and builder, Gustav Whitehead, a distance of approximately a half mile." Stella Randolph, The Lost Flights of Gustave Whitehead

The story of the first flight is one that every American school child knows by heart: The Wright Brothers flew their craft "The Flyer" in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, thus making history and ushering in a transportation mechanism that would change the world. Committed to memory and repeated in each new American history book, this story omits the dozens, if not hundreds of intrepid inventors around the world who worked during this early aviation period to perfect gliders and motorized craft. Likewise, it does not acknowledge those who influenced and assisted the Wright Brothers extensively in their achievement.

But what is most troubling about this version of events is that it isn't the whole story. Not to say the Wrights never flew - but that there is lots of evidence that others flew before them - and not just in the United States. One such early aviation pioneer with a claim to the first flight is Gustave Whitehead - a figure as inspiring as he is enigmatic - a German immigrant to America whose "Number 21" and "Number 22" airplanes are reported to have flown as early as two years before the famed Kitty Hawk escapade.

This website is dedicated to presenting the research, information and photographs associated with Gustave Whitehead's little-known life. Originally hosted at deepsky.com, this site has been online since 1997 advocating for a rewrite of official aviation history to at least include the possibility that others - such as Gustave - likely beat the Wright Brothers in taking to the skies in a powered craft.

Bruce Nauman's "Not So Neon" Art is Flying/Water

Flying Over Volar water by Peter Greenaway

Flying Over water is an interesting proposal for a installation art work, that serves to push film past its current stagnant state. The subject of this installation is the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun on wings made of beeswax and feathers, and fell to his death when the beeswax melted from the heat of the sun. In this article, Greenaway repeatedly analyses the story of Icarus, questioning his age, and what type of feathers he could have used, and other details of the story. I was not sure how these questions tied into his installation, but I found the various meanings and morals behind the story, such as humility. Like Carrie mentioned, I found the text difficult to read, in that I was unsure how it all tied together. His installation is something I wold love to experience. It is an interesting concept, particularly the idea that the viewer chooses who he/she would like to be Icarus from various men displayed in glass, as if they where video game characters, or action figures. One thing Greenway said that stands out in my mind, although it is unrelated to flight, is that images become slaves to text. The text describes what you are seeing, and the meaning behind it, and the imagery illustrates the text. I thought this was an interesting statement, which I agree with.

Ligo Observatory Detects "Ripples" or Gravitational Waves in Space-Time

ligo’s hanford observatory, one of 2 main facilities used by ligo to detect ‘ripples’ or gravitational waves in space-time. both of the observatories have an enormous l-shaped interferometer, each arm measuring 4km in length, with a mirror at each end. laser light enters the ‘arms’ from the corner of the l-shape and then bounces back and forth between each mirror a set number of times. the reason for this is better explained in the clip below.

More info here

JAXA Testing Space Solar Power System

For decades, scientists have explored the possibility of using space-based solar cells to power the Earth. Some see orbiting power stations as a clean and stable energy source that promises to slow global warming, while others dismiss the idea as an expensive and impractical solution to the world’s energy problems. While the discussion goes on, researchers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have begun to develop the hardware. AXA, which plans to have a Space Solar Power System (SSPS) up and running by 2030, envisions a system consisting of giant solar collectors in geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. The satellites convert sunlight into powerful microwave (or laser) beams that are aimed at receiving stations on Earth, where they are converted into electricity.

More at Pinktentacle.com

Apollo Moon Landing Hoax Theories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Moon_Landing_hoax_accusations

Caroline Woolard: Swing Everywhere

................Flying lessons...... Gravitation is a phenomenon through which all objects attract each other. Flight is the process by which an object achieves sustained movement through the air by aerodynamically generating lift, aerostatically using buoyancy, or in movement beyond earth’s atmosphere, in the case of spaceflight........................... The quest for the horizon is a bed, an unreachable, horizontal dreamland of vacation islands where water and sky touch freely. Only sailors and sunset interrupt this line of blue against blue with myth and poetry. The vertical reach of cities, like the upright character of waking life, slaps neighborhoods awake in construction's eternal quest for clouds: vacancies appear only upwards, above and on top. Lonely horizons are levitating bodies in beds, beds filled mostly by ones not twos. City buildings stand in crowds barred by streets, with so many not-slanted, flat roofs collecting and evaporating because where would the water go? The anonymous intimacy of subway mornings with sleeping fists gathered, gripping, piled on totem-pole-of-hands railings. I want to make eye contact.

Fish in Space in Motion Sickness Study

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (API) - Seventy-two small fish were briefly launched into space by researchers Thursday, hoping their swimming patterns would shed some light on motion sickness. German researchers sent the cichlids on a 10-minute rocket ride that blasted off from a launch pad in northern Sweden, said Professor Reinhard Hilbig, who was in charge of the project. "They were very happy, I think they want to have another flight," he said. The thumbnail-sized fish were filmed as they swam around weightlessly in small aquariums during the unmanned space flight. The German team will now study the video to see if some of the fish swam in circles because that is what fish do when they experience motion sickness, said Hilbig, of the Zoological Institute at the University of Stuttgart. He said scientists hope the experiment can help explain why some people experience motion sickness while others do not. The mechanisms involved are similar for both fish and humans. Hilbig said the fish landed safely and appeared to be in good condition. Cichlids were picked for the experiment because they are sturdy fish who were deemed to have good chances to survive the stress of a space flight. "Goldfish are a little bit fat and messy, while the cichlid fish is a well-trained, sporty fish with muscles," he said.

Note: the image is of an actual flying fish, but not one of the fish in space. Once I can locate the latter, it will be posted. Ever onward!

Tango Dérive: Flying across the Williamsburg Bridge during the Conflux Festival

Tango Intervention Link

Urban performative intervention incorporating Tango dancing, art, revelry and flight.

Robert Lawrence, is the artist who organized this fabulous project, Tango Intervention, at last years Conflux Festival in NYC.

(or you can copy & paste the link at: http://tangointervention.com)

Big bird

Lunar Eclipse!

There is a Lunar Eclipse tonight starting at 10 PM. I know this post is kind of on the late side, but go outside right now and check it out! I just spent a half hour on the roof, and I know it's cold, but it's worth it. Apparently, it's the last total eclipse until 2010.

"If there are extra particles in the atmosphere, from say a recent volcanic eruption, the moon will appear a darker shade of red."

The redness occurs because while the moon is in total shadow, some light from the sun passes through Earth's atmosphere and is bent toward the moon. The effect is to cast all the planet's sunrises and sunsets on the moon."

I think that is absolutely beautiful.

quote taken from: space.com!

Shark That Walks on Fins Is Discovered

By MICHAEL CASEY

The Associated Press
Monday, September 18, 2006; 7:05 PMBANGKOK, Thailand -- Scientists combing through undersea fauna off Indonesia's Papua province said Monday they had discovered dozens of new species, including a shark that walks on its fins and a shrimp that looks like a praying mantis.The team from U.S.-based Conservation International also warned that the area _ known as Bird's Head Seascape _ is under danger from fishermen who use dynamite and cyanide to net their catches and called on Indonesia's government to do more to protect it.

 “strikingly unusual” new mammal has been discovered in the tree forests of Peru. The large rodent, which has been described by its finders as a “handsome novelty”, looks similar to a squirrel and yet is most closely related to spiny rats.It is a nocturnal tree-climbing rodent with long dense fur, a broad blocky head, and a thickly furred tail. A blackish crest of fur on its crown, nape and shoulders add to its distinctive appearance.The new species, which has been named Isothrix barbarabrownae, was found by an international team of field researchers in Manu National Park and Biosphere Reserve along the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains in southern Peru. The Manu is home to more species of mammals and birds than any equivalently sized area in the world, experts claim.“Preliminary DNA analyses suggest that its nearest relatives, all restricted to the lowlands, may have arisen from Andean ancestors,” says Bruce Patterson, curator of mammals at The Field Museum in Chicago, US, who was involved in the study. “The newly discovered species casts a striking new light on the evolution of an entire group of arboreal rodents.”Journal reference: Mastozoologia Neotropical (vol 13, p 175)

Greenaway response-ish

Peter Greenaway Reading

English is a second language for my roommate. Since the beginning of the semester she's been having a difficult time completing the reading and writing for her critical inquiry class. Usually every time it came up I told her not to be so hard on herself, that she's had so many adjustments to make, and that she doesn't need to be immediately good at everything right now. Then tonight she told me she still hadn't done the work and I didn't feel like saying all those encouraging compassionate things I felt like she should do the work. Then I felt guilty. So I tried to read the Greenaway reading in the- is that Italian?- translation. In my language I find the writing really delightful and rich, it tapped all different strands of thought and I felt like it played along with me chasing tangents and beckoning questions. In another language it also felt like playing, this time a guessing game, and many thoughts were activated as well- but their themes seemed much less aligned with whatever Greenaway was talking about, because I didn't really know what Greenaway was talking about, although I did enjoy congratulating myself when I vaguely understood almost a whole paragraph. I remember how frustrating it was to try and read short stories in Spanish because even if I translated accurately, I was perplexed by the magic realism, which made me wonder whether I translated accurately. Sometimes when I'm dancing I find that my partner and I are speaking the same language, or something much more intuitive and raw than language. Maybe like echolocation, or like blood that's coursing through both sets of veins so there's no use discussing it. All the cues, symbols, and signs are clear and it is even more harmonious than a conversation. Sometimes I have no idea what he is talking about and it is frustrating and it makes me really self conscious. I am embarrassed at my bad grammar and the phrases I have found and love seem stupid and untranslateable. I forget if I know how to speak, I forget whether I have grace. I fail to transmit meaning to the other person and I wonder if what I had to transmit is meaningful afterall. Once I thought that people said what they meant and meant what they said.

I think Icarus flew and the wax was melted and running down over the wings. He crashed into the water and the water was grace and it cooled and hardened the wax in a whole new way. The wings were reconstructed with different folds, capacities, and frames of movement. At first dysfunctional and disabling, only heavy and laden. In time he learned the language of the burden and his muscles learned to work with them until these wings had flight again.

The Great Pyramids, DNA, and The Elements

http://www.astroconsulting.com/FAQs/pyramids.htm

Cloud Appreciation Society

Yes it's true.
The Cloud Appreciation Society

http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/

space fireworks

a “space fireworks” show consisting of three balls of red light in the sky, each glowing as bright as the moon.These luminous orbs will be the result of three clouds of lithium vapor released into the ionosphere by a rocket launched in an experiment to study the atmosphere. The red glow will be caused by sunlight striking the lithium vapor clouds as they disperse. “In the first few seconds after each lithium release, the light should become as large and bright as the moon,” says team member Masayuki Yamamoto, a professor at Kochi University of Technology.The researchers, who come from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Hokkaido University and Kochi University of Technology, say the purpose of the experiment is to study atmospheric flow in the ionosphere at an altitude of between 100 to 300 km. This area of the atmosphere is difficult to study because satellites typically must remain at altitudes

more strange clouds!

This photograph, taken June 18 from a Japan Coast Guard aircraft off the northeastern coast of Hokkaido, shows a bird’s-eye view of cloud streets over the Sea of Okhotsk. According to the Sapporo Meteorological Observatory, these low-altitude stratocumulus clouds were rolled into long, distinctive ribbons after becoming trapped in air currents. While it is not uncommon for wind to form such patterns in stratocumulus clouds, photos that clearly show the clouds rolled into strips are rare, says the observatory.

White Dwarf pedal-and fuel powered blimp

Report from http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk
Oh my - a pedal powered personal blimp? Yes, I do believe that suits me right down to the ground (and up again). Originally built in 1984 but dusted off and revisited, the White Dwarf is a helium filled, pedal and fuel powered hybrid blimp for one passenger currently. Apparently the version at the moment tops out at a respectable (and I mean that in the original sense of the word) 15mph before the envelope becomes somewhat unstable and slows down. They hope to get it faster, and to carry two, and I hope they do too! Oh, to have my very own blimp to pedal over the lochs and glens! Via the Treehugger blog.

Pedal Powered Airship

Is there life on Mars? Is it us, Earthlings?

NASA urged to focus on sending people to Mars
16:06 15 February 2008
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga
NASA should focus its efforts on mounting a human mission to Mars, and downgrade its plans for a human presence on the Moon, says a distinguished group of space experts, including former NASA officials and ex-astronauts. A group of about 45 people met at Stanford University in California, US, on 12 and 13 February for a meeting to reconsider NASA's human space exploration plans, including the possibility of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid, rather than to the Moon. The timing of the conference during an election year highlights the possibility that the next US president could shift NASA's spaceflight priorities, which were authorised by Congress in 2005. Press coverage leading up to the event focused on the idea of an asteroid mission. But although the idea was discussed at the meeting, attendees did not embrace it as an alternative to the Moon. Instead, the space experts urged NASA to focus more on human missions to Mars, and endorsed a greater role for international cooperation in NASA's human space exploration plans. Since US president George W Bush first announced his "Vision for Space Exploration" in 2004, NASA has said that returning to the Moon would serve as a stepping stone for getting to Mars.
'Bogged down'
But conference co-organiser Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, US, and now a professor at Stanford, says NASA's plans have evolved over time into building a permanent lunar base. "There's a consensus I think that we had to re-elevate Mars as the goal, to reinforce the drive to not get bogged down in other places," he said. Still, the group did not endorse the idea of skipping the Moon and going to a near-Earth asteroid instead. NASA chief Mike Griffin has been vocally opposed to the idea of shifting the agency's priorities towards an asteroid mission, and on Wednesday told a congressional hearing he thought the proposal was "foolish, frankly". The Moon is a more appropriate first destination beyond low-Earth orbit because it takes just three days to reach, Griffin said. NASA could develop its spaceflight abilities relatively easily there before embarking on more ambitious missions, he said. In contrast, it would take months to make a roundtrip journey to a near-Earth asteroid.

"I believe people will find the Moon to be an exciting and interesting place for humans in the future," he added. "I just cannot agree with so-called space policy experts who believe the Moon is not an appropriate goal for our exploration efforts."The conference attendees appeared to have accepted the argument. "We heard from the advocates for the other destinations, like near-Earth objects," Hubbard said. "I think we didn't see at this point a compelling reason to not include the Moon as a next stepping stone destination." "I came here as a 'Mars direct' proponent and I changed my mind," said co-organiser Kathryn Thornton, a former space shuttle astronaut and now a professor at the University of Virginia. "I now feel that the Moon as a stepping point is a prudent decision." Nonetheless, there was general agreement that NASA should scale down its lunar plans and scepticism that the agency would meet its goal of returning to the Moon by 2020 within its current budget, although conference organisers did not specify another date for either the Moon or Mars.
'Broader collaboration'
There was also a consensus among attendees that there should be more cooperation between the US and other countries on human space exploration. Under the so-called "critical path" doctrine that NASA has adopted, the agency plans to develop all the necessary capabilities for getting to the Moon itself, relegating other nations to secondary roles at best. "We're urging the next administration to revisit that requirement to see if there's some broader international collaboration that will add this capability without putting the entire budget on the back of the US," Hubbard said. Such a collaboration could even include China, Hubbard said, even though the US State Department said in 2007 it was questioning any future space cooperation with China following that country's test of an anti-satellite weapon earlier that year. "Given that they've already demonstrated human spaceflight capability, and we've seen the value through the International Space Station of reaching out to other countries … I think it would be great, personally, to see China engaged in discussion about this," Hubbard said.