Russian President Medvedev Promises Punishment for Space Mishaps (ContributorNetwork)

According to Space.com, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is threatening to punish officials who are judged to be responsible for a series of space mishaps that have embarrassed that country's space effort.

What are some of the mishaps that have plagued the Russian space program?

The most recent accident concerned Russia's ambitious attempt to send a probe, dubbed Phobos-Grunt, to the Martian moon Phobos to take soil and rock samples and return them to Earth. Phobos-Grunt was stuck in low Earth orbit, having failed to executed a pair of rocket firings that would have sent it on a trajectory toward Mars.

In August, a Russian Progress spacecraft that carrying supplies to the International Space Station suffered a failure of its Soyuz rocket and instead of going to the ISS crashed into Siberia, according to Space.com. The mishap resulted in serious doubts about the ability of the Russians to provide transportation services for both cargo and humans, leading to the possibility that the ISS would have to be abandoned. However the Russians were able to find the cause of the glitch that had destroyed the Progress and have since been able to launch both a Progress cargo mission and a manned Soyuz to the ISS.

Why is Medvedev contemplating punitive action?

Russia clearly sees space travel as an expression of a country that expires to be a super power. It has had this attitude ever since the early space program, when the old Soviet Union was able to accomplish a series of space spectaculars, including Sputnik, the first Earth satellite, and the flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in low Earth orbit. More recently, with the end of the space shuttle program, the Russian Space Agency boasted that the world had entered into the "Age of Soyuz" with America being forced to rely on Russia for trips to the ISS. There was even a dig at the fact that the Americans had lost two space shuttles, the Challenger and Columbia, with the boast of how reliable the Soyuz was. This form of chest pounding has come back to haunt the Russians in view of the Progress and Phobos-Grunt failures.

What does Medvedev propose to do to people he finds responsible for Russian space failures?

Reuters reports that the Russian president, perhaps in a fit of whimsy, has promised that they would not be stood up against a wall and shot, as was the practice in Josef Stalin's time. But criminal penalties, including imprisonment and fines, as well as administrative penalties are on the table.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker . He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the LA Times, and The Weekly Standard.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111206/sc_ac/10584539_russian_president_medvedev__promises_punishment_for_space_mishaps

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CG crash survivor faces charges in deadly incident (Providence Journal)

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Zynga rival Nexon's Tokyo IPO set at $1.2 billion (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) ? Online gaming firm Nexon Co fixed the price for its $1.2 billion initial public offering on Monday at the mid-point of a pre-set range, following U.S.-based rival Zynga in settling for a more conservative valuation amid tough stock market conditions.

The public offering, Japan's biggest this year, was several times oversubscribed, reflecting investor expectations that the firm will continue to expand profits thanks to the increasing popularity of online gaming both domestically and overseas.

"There are not that many Japanese companies with overseas growth stories. That makes it attractive," said Toru Hashizume, chief investment officer at Stats Investment Management. He declined to say if Stats would participate in the IPO.

Nexon said it would sell shares at 1,300 yen each, picking the middle of a book-building range of 1,200-1,400 after sounding out investors for the global offering last week, and coming in below the initial reference price of 1,360 yen.

It will list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section on December 14, meaning it will be added to the TOPIX index, therefore drawing demand from index funds.

At the IPO price Nexon will raise about 91 billion yen ($1.2 billion) and boast a market value of 560 billion yen, roughly the same as mobile gaming firm Gree Inc, whose stock has jumped more than 7 times since listing three years ago.

The pricing came after Zynga, known for its success with games on Facebook, was forced last week to lower the expected valuation for its IPO this month, due to weak markets and macroeconomic uncertainty.

Nexon has more than 77 million active monthly users, compared with Zynga's 260 million.

While demand for the Nexon offering was strong, a decision was made not to price at the top of the range to ensure a good mix of long-term investors and give the stock a good shot at rising after listing, a source with knowledge of the book-building said.

A cyber attack in which hackers gained access to personal but no financial information on more than 13 million subscribers to its popular role playing game MapleStory in South Korea probably took some of the shine off the IPO, a Japanese broker not involved in the offering said.

"There has been increasing caution among investors, which is why it did not come in at the top of the 1,200-1,400 yen range," said Takashi Matsumoto, a director at Okasan Securities.

VIRTUAL ITEMS

The IPO, Japan's largest since drugmaker Otsuka Holdings took in 160 billion yen in December 2010, was launched despite weak market conditions, with the benchmark Nikkei average down 15 percent since the start of the year.

Last week Nikko Asset Management, which was also due to list in Tokyo this month, cancelled its IPO.

Nexon, established in South Korea in 1994, plans to use 14 billion yen of the proceeds to pay off debt, another 9 billion yen to construct a new building for its main subsidiary Nexon Korea Corporation and the remainder on upgrading games systems, including potential investments in third-party games developers.

Nexon's most successful offerings include MapleStory and KartRider. Its operating profit tripled to 30 billion yen in the year to December 2010 from 2008, while sales increased more than 70 percent to 70 billion yen.

Nexon offers PC-based games for free while charging small amounts for in-game virtual items, a business model analysts see as relatively recession-proof.

At the offering price Nexon would trade at 15 times projected consensus earnings for calendar 2012, according to the source, putting it roughly in line with Gree.

Nexon is selling half of the shares overseas and half in Japan.

Nomura Securities, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are joint global coordinators, while Barclays Capital is a bookrunner on the international tranche.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Joseph Radford)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/tc_nm/us_nexon_ipoprice

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Russian President Medvedev Promises Punishment for Space Mishaps (ContributorNetwork)

According to Space.com, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is threatening to punish officials who are judged to be responsible for a series of space mishaps that have embarrassed that country's space effort.

What are some of the mishaps that have plagued the Russian space program?

The most recent accident concerned Russia's ambitious attempt to send a probe, dubbed Phobos-Grunt, to the Martian moon Phobos to take soil and rock samples and return them to Earth. Phobos-Grunt was stuck in low Earth orbit, having failed to executed a pair of rocket firings that would have sent it on a trajectory toward Mars.

In August, a Russian Progress spacecraft that carrying supplies to the International Space Station suffered a failure of its Soyuz rocket and instead of going to the ISS crashed into Siberia, according to Space.com. The mishap resulted in serious doubts about the ability of the Russians to provide transportation services for both cargo and humans, leading to the possibility that the ISS would have to be abandoned. However the Russians were able to find the cause of the glitch that had destroyed the Progress and have since been able to launch both a Progress cargo mission and a manned Soyuz to the ISS.

Why is Medvedev contemplating punitive action?

Russia clearly sees space travel as an expression of a country that expires to be a super power. It has had this attitude ever since the early space program, when the old Soviet Union was able to accomplish a series of space spectaculars, including Sputnik, the first Earth satellite, and the flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in low Earth orbit. More recently, with the end of the space shuttle program, the Russian Space Agency boasted that the world had entered into the "Age of Soyuz" with America being forced to rely on Russia for trips to the ISS. There was even a dig at the fact that the Americans had lost two space shuttles, the Challenger and Columbia, with the boast of how reliable the Soyuz was. This form of chest pounding has come back to haunt the Russians in view of the Progress and Phobos-Grunt failures.

What does Medvedev propose to do to people he finds responsible for Russian space failures?

Reuters reports that the Russian president, perhaps in a fit of whimsy, has promised that they would not be stood up against a wall and shot, as was the practice in Josef Stalin's time. But criminal penalties, including imprisonment and fines, as well as administrative penalties are on the table.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker . He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the LA Times, and The Weekly Standard.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111202/sc_ac/10584539_russian_president_medvedev__promises_punishment_for_space_mishaps

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NASA satellite confirms sharp decline in pollution from US coal power plants

Friday, December 2, 2011

A team of scientists have used the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite to confirm major reductions in the levels of a key air pollutant generated by coal power plants in the eastern United States. The pollutant, sulfur dioxide, contributes to the formation of acid rain and can cause serious health problems.

The scientists, led by an Environment Canada researcher, have shown that sulfur dioxide levels in the vicinity of major coal power plants have fallen by nearly half since 2005. The new findings, the first satellite observations of this type, confirm ground-based measurements of declining sulfur dioxide levels and demonstrate that scientists can potentially measure levels of harmful emissions throughout the world, even in places where ground monitoring is not extensive or does not exist. About two-thirds of sulfur dioxide pollution in American air comes from coal power plants. Geophysical Research Letters published details of the new research this month.

The scientists attribute the decline in sulfur dioxide to the Clean Air Interstate Rule, a rule passed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2005 that called for deep cuts in sulfur dioxide emissions. In response to that rule, many power plants in the United States have installed desulfurization devices and taken other steps that limit the release of sulfur dioxide. The rule put a cap on emissions, but left it up to power companies to determine how to reduce emissions and allowed companies to trade pollution credits.

While scientists have used the Ozone Monitoring Instrument to observe sulfur dioxide levels within large plumes of volcanic ash and over heavily polluted parts of China in the past, this is the first time they have observed such subtle details over the United States, a region of the world that in comparison to fast-growing parts of Asia now has relatively modest sulfur dioxide emissions. Just a few decades ago, sulfur dioxide pollution was quite severe in the United States. Levels of the pollutant have dropped by about 75 percent since the 1980s due largely to the passage of the Clean Air Act.

Vitali Fioletov, a scientist based in Toronto at Environment Canada, and his colleagues developed a new mathematical approach that made the improved measurements a reality. The approach centers on averaging measurements within a 30 miles radius (50 km) of a sulfur dioxide source over several years. "Vitali has developed an extremely powerful technique that makes it possible to detect emissions even when levels of sulfur dioxide are about four times lower than what we could detect previously," said Nickolay Krotkov, a researcher based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a coauthor of the new paper.

The technique allowed Fioletov and his colleagues to pinpoint the sulfur dioxide signals from the 40 largest sulfur dioxide sources in the United States ? generally coal power plants that emit more than 70 kilotons of sulfur dioxide per year. The scientists observed major declines in sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia by comparing levels of the pollutant for an average of the period 2005 to 2007 with another average from 2008 to 2010.

"What we're seeing in these satellite observations represents a major environmental accomplishment," said Bryan Bloomer, an Environmental Protection Agency scientist familiar with the new satellite observations. "This is a huge success story for the EPA and the Clean Air Interstate Rule," he said.

The researchers focused their analysis on the United States to take advantage of the presence of a robust network of ground-based instruments that monitor sulfur dioxide emissions inside power plant smokestacks. The ground-based instruments have logged a 46 percent decline in sulfur dioxide levels since 2005 ? a finding consistent with the 40 percent reduction observed by OMI.

"Now that we've confirmed that the technique works, the next step is to use it for other parts of the world that don't have ground-based sensors," said Krotkov. "The real beauty of using satellites is that we can apply the same technique to the entire globe in a consistent way." In addition, the team plans to use a similar technique to monitor other important pollutants that coal power plants release, such as nitrogen dioxide, a precursor to ozone.

OMI, a Dutch and Finnish built instrument, was launched in 2004, as one of four instruments on the NASA Aura satellite, and can measure sulfur dioxide more accurately than any satellite instrument flown to date. Though OMI remains in very good condition and scientists expect it to continue producing high-quality data for many years, the researchers also hope to use data from an upcoming Dutch-built OMI follow-on instrument called TROPOMI that is expected to launch on a European Space Agency satellite in 2014.

On July 6, 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), requiring 27 states to significantly reduce power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and fine particle pollution in other states. This rule replaces EPA's 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). A December 2008 court decision kept the requirements of CAIR in place temporarily but directed EPA to issue a new rule to implement Clean Air Act requirements concerning the transport of air pollution across state boundaries. This action responds to the court's concerns.

###

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center: http://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Thanks to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115658/NASA_satellite_confirms_sharp_decline_in_pollution_from_US_coal_power_plants

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Brooke Mueller Arrested For Cocaine Possession & Assault!

Looks like Brooke Mueller hasn?t kicked that drug habit after all. Charlie Sheen?s ex was arrested last night for assault and possession of cocaine, yikes. RadarOnline is reporting that Mueller was busted for cocaine on Friday night in Aspen, Colorado. The celebrity site is further claiming that the train wreck was also booked on an assault charge. An Aspen PD spokesperson has confirmed Brooke was taken into custody and that she was released on an $11,000 bond. Details about what went down are unclear at this moment but word on the street is that the Aspen Police Department will be issuing a statement about that shortly. If this sounds familiar well it is. Two years ago at Christmas time in Aspen, Colorado was the infamous Brooke Mueller and Charlie Sheen blowout that involved drugs and him allegedly attacking her with a knife. Since that incident Brooke?s life has seemed to be nothing but a disaster. She has done a number of unsuccessful stints in rehab, including one earlier this year that did nothing for her. Along with her drug problem she and Sheen were in a custody battle for their two sons, Max and Bob for awhile but as of [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/xVTd2aHanpo/

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Forget '11 (or so Red Sox hope): Bobby V is coming

FILE-This Aug. 14, 2002 file photo shows New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine leaning on the dugout rail before their start against the San Diego Padres at Shea Stadium in New York. A person familiar with the decision says the Boston Red Sox have chosen Bobby Valentine to be their next manager and were working to complete a contract.The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011, because no announcement had been made. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)

FILE-This Aug. 14, 2002 file photo shows New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine leaning on the dugout rail before their start against the San Diego Padres at Shea Stadium in New York. A person familiar with the decision says the Boston Red Sox have chosen Bobby Valentine to be their next manager and were working to complete a contract.The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011, because no announcement had been made. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)

FILE-This Nov. 21, 2011 file photo shows ESPN analyst Bobby Valentine smiling as he answers questions from reporters following his interview for the vacant Boston Red Sox manager position, at Fenway Park in Boston. A person familiar with the decision says the Boston Red Sox have chosen Bobby Valentine to be their next manager and were working to complete a contract. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 because no announcement had been made. (AP Photo/Bizuayehu Tesfaye, File)

BOSTON (AP) ? Players eating fried chicken and drinking beer in the clubhouse during games. If it didn't bother Bobby Valentine as a baseball lifer, it would certainly offend his sensibilities as a self-proclaimed gourmet chef.

"He won't let that happen. There's no way he's going to let that happen," said Tommy Lasorda, Valentine's manager in the minor leagues and a mentor who encouraged him to try for the Red Sox job.

"There's times ? in all phases of life ? when you've got to kick them in the (rear) when they need it, and there's times when you need to hug them if they need it. Your livelihood depends on those guys. You've got to have them in the right frame of mind, to be loyal to the organization, to put forth all the effort that they have."

Boston announced Valentine as its new manager Wednesday, and he will be introduced by the Red Sox at a Fenway Park news conference on Thursday evening.

The 61-year-old replaces Terry Francona, who left after eight years in which he guided the Red Sox to two World Series titles but also the biggest September collapse in baseball history. The first job for the former Mets and Rangers manager: reversing a culture in which players ate takeout fried chicken and drank beer in the clubhouse during games instead of sitting on the bench with their teammates.

"You give loyalty, you'll get it back. You give love, you'll get it back," Lasorda said Wednesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And that's the way it has to be."

At a news conference the day he formally interviewed for the job, Valentine said he learned a lot about discipline while managing in Japan. Although the players there are more respectful of authority and less likely to step out of line, he said, they also appreciated having clearly defined rules so they knew where their limits were.

"Discipline is not 30 whacks with a whip these days," Valentine said. "I think everyone likes discipline. I think everyone likes structure. Everyone likes to be acknowledged when they do things properly. Discipline and rules and things like that ? it's just about right and wrong."

Francona admitted he lost his players near the end of a tenure during which he counted on them to police themselves and never said anything negative about them in public. When Valentine was in New York, he did not hesitate to criticize his players and bickered with them, his boss and the media.

Former Mets general manager Omar Minaya said Valentine is every bit a players' manager but one who insists on accountability.

"Bobby is not going to be the guy who's cracking the whip. I can tell you that right now," said Minaya, who was in the Rangers and Mets front offices when Valentine managed there. "He's going to be a players' manager, but he's going to command respect. ... I think what Bobby's going to try to do is demand that players be professional."

The Red Sox topped the AL East for much of the summer and had a nine-game lead in the wild-card race that they squandered by going 7-20 in September, missing the playoffs for the second straight season. Francona left before he could be fired, saying the clubhouse needed a different voice.

And, boy, is Valentine ever different.

A restaurateur who claims to have invented the wrap sandwich; a high school star in football and baseball; a two-time minor-league MVP; the son-in-law of former major leaguer Ralph Branca; the manager of the NL pennant-winning New York Mets and Japanese champion Chiba Lotte Marines; the director of health and public safety in Stamford, Conn.; purveyor of an athletic training facility; a successful TV analyst.

And he might even be most famous for returning to the dugout wearing a fake mustache and sunglasses after being ejected from a game in 1999; Major League Baseball fined him $5,000 and suspended him for three games.

Valentine's personality certainly is large.

And his resume is long.

But it has one major gap: He's never won a World Series.

"It drives all of us that do this for a living," Minaya said. "If you don't win a World Series and you're a competitor, it drives you."

Valentine managed the Texas Rangers from 1985-92, when he was fired by then-owner and future U.S. President George W. Bush. His last big league managerial job was with the Mets, from 1996-02, where he guided the Mets to consecutive wild-card berths and a trip to the 2000 World Series.

Two years later, they finished last and Valentine was fired, leaving him with a 1,117-1,072 record. He has never finished in first place in 15 major league seasons.

But Valentine went to Japan and managed Chiba Lotte to a championship in 2005. He has been working as an analyst for ESPN, where he has said Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett should work faster and left fielder Carl Crawford should close his stance.

"These last two years have been good for Bobby. It gave him a chance to get back and become familiar with all the players in the major leagues. That will help him," Branca said. "Boston is a challenge, but when has he not liked challenges?"

A native of Connecticut and a former roommate of Bill Buckner's, Valentine was the most intriguing candidate for the Red Sox job on a list that included Gene Lamont, Dale Sveum, Torey Lovullo, Pete Mackanin and Sandy Alomar Jr. After his name surfaced, he was endorsed for the job not only by Lasorda but by Steve Phillips, the Mets GM who bickered with Valentine and eventually fired him; Bush has also expressed a fondness for his former skipper.

Minaya said Valentine's outsized personality will be a plus in Boston, where fans still are stewing over last year's collapse.

"All year they're going to be reminded of what happened in '11, and Bobby will be able to take the attention on himself," said Minaya, whose Mets missed the playoffs on the last day of the season after leading the division in both 2007 and '08. "We lived it. There's no doubt that all year long the Red Sox are going to be reminded of last year. I think Bobby's going to be a positive force in getting people to focus on '12."

The Red Sox certainly hope so.

At about the same time Valentine was landing in New York on his way back from a goodwill trip to Japan, the Red Sox sent reporters an advisory that select tickets for 2012 will go on sale next week.

___

AP Baseball Writer Ben Walker contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-30-BBA-Red-Sox-Valentine/id-7a895b8edb9348fb9c97afcb1782df93

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Liquid living worms survive space

29 November 2011 Last updated at 21:02 ET By Jennifer Carpenter Science reporter, BBC News

Worms have survived their first space mission in liquid form.

The result, published in a Royal Society journal, means worm colonies can be established on space stations without the need for researchers to tend to them.

The animals are helping scientists understand the effects of weightlessness and high radiation levels experienced in space.

Lessons learned could one day assist humans to explore the Solar System.

In 2001, Stephen Hawking is reported to have said: "I don't think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."

But space is no easy amble. Humans must first learn to cheaply and safely propel themselves into space regularly, and then, once there, must adapt to high levels of radiation and to weightlessness.

In preparation for longer spaceflight, scientists have designed shields to deflect harmful energetic particles, and continue to study the ill-effect of weightlessness on astronauts.

The gravity studies have mostly focused on a group of muscles - broadly known as anti-gravity muscles - that seem to deteriorate without the gravitational pull of the Earth. However, there is some evidence for the weakening in all muscles, including the hearts of astronauts.

Weightlessness not only sees animals use their muscles less, but causes changes in the chemical reactions within the muscle cells, explained Nathaniel Szewczyk from the University of Nottingham, who is the lead author on the new study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Dr Szewczyk, and his team, looked at the effects of weightlessness on the muscles of worms, because these multicellular animals share many genes with humans, and can therefore help scientists gauge the long-term impacts of deep spaceflight on human life.

The recent mission saw Dr Szewczyk's worms return to Earth with the space shuttle Discovery after 6 months in orbit. It was the longest time worms have survived and been recovered, he said.

Liquid lunch

This was possible because the international team established an automated setup for growing worms that transferred a subset of the animals to fresh food every month, filming the worms' progress as they went.

The technique was dependent on establishing that worms fare just as well in liquid as they do on their usual agar plates.

He explains that "because we had the bad experience with shuttle STS-107, which of course is the shuttle that broke up, we are keen [to] avoid being dependent on getting the worms back."

This way, the researchers can gather data on the worms from space, and automating the worm culturing also means less work.

Dr Szewczyk, like all UK scientists, is currently dependent on collaborating with international space programmes to get their animals into space.

However, the UK is in the process of considering whether to join the European Programme for Life and Physical Science (Elips), a European Space Agency-run programme that would give British scientists more direct access to the space station. The decision will be taken next year.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-15897803

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