Memorial Day ceremony on Okinawa honors U.S. vets

“Sixty years have passed and on this Memorial Day, in commemoration of those sixty years of peace, we pay homage to the thousands of combatants who gave their lives,” stated the requiem in the ceremony’s program. “But most especially, we pay homage to more than one hundred thousand Okinawan citizens who died in the crossfire, as well as those servicemen who are buried … throughout the world.”

European and Pacific Stars & Stripes
http://www.stripesonline.com/article.asp?section=104&article=29445

NASA's Launch Schedule

Date/2005 /Mission /Vehicle /Pad

June 23 GOES-N
NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center / NOAA
Launch Window: 6:13 p.m. to 6:58 p.m. EDT Delta IV
Boeing 37　CCAFS

3rd Quarter STS-114
Return to Flight Mission
Launch Planning Window: July 13 - 31 Space Shuttle　Discovery 39B　KSC

NET July 22* CloudSat/CALIPSO
NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Goddard SpaceFlight Center Delta II　Boeing SLC-2　VAFB

Aug. 10 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Launch Window: 7:53:58 a.m. to 9:53:58 a.m. EDT Atlas VLockheed Martin 41　CCAFS

3rd Quarter STS-121
Launch Planning Window: September 9 - 24 Space Shuttle　Atlantis 39B　KSC

NASA - NASA's Shuttle and Rocket Missions
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html

Bon Voyage From Baghdad

McQuade is half a world away filling a far different role.
He's in Baghdad, helping to restore legal order, but Discovery isn't far from this Space Shuttle engineer's heart.

http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/crew/f_baghdad-banner.html

Who's the guy you're designing to go to war with in the future?

The Navy dropped its first 500-pound JDAMs in combat in November and has asked Boeing to accelerate production of the 500-pounders because they are finding them to be an extremely effective weapon in Iraq.
"Who's the enemy? Who's the guy you're designing to go to war with in the future?"
All Systems Go - Vol. 3 No. 1 Naval Weapons: Filling the Gap BY CHRIS HADDOX
http://www.boeing.com/ids/allsystemsgo/issues/vol3/num1/story05.html

Voyager Enters Solar System's Final Frontier

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered the solar system's final frontier, a vast, turbulent expanse where the Sun's influence ends and the solar wind crashes into the thin gas between stars.
The Voyagers are identical but on different flight paths. Voyager 1 is about 8.7 billion miles from the Sun and traveling at a speed of 3.6 AU per year while Voyager 2is about 6.5 billion miles away and moving at about 3.3 AU per year. One 'AU' equals the distance between the Sun and Earth, or 93 million miles. In July 2004 scientists used Voyagers to track a solar blast to the edges of the solar system. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/voyager_agu.html

Amnesty International says U.S. war dodger would be prisoner of conscience

TORONTO (CP) - Prominent human-rights group Amnesty International has declared that it will adopt a young American war dodger as a prisoner of conscience if Canada deports him to the United States to confront a possible prison sentence.
940 NEWS on May 22, 2005
http://www.940news.com/nouvelles.php?cat=9&id=n052204A

Solar 'Fireworks' Signal New Space Weather Mystery

The most intense burst of solar radiation in five decades accompanied a large solar flare on January 20, shaking space weather theory and highlighting the need for new forecasting techniques.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/solar_fireworks.html

Launch is Flawless!

NOAA-N successfully launched into polar-orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base to keep a close watch on Earth's atmosphere.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/main/index.html

Power to the people = popular access to computers?

Do we owe it all to the hippies? |CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5705499.html

Okinawans form human chain to demand closure of MCAS Futenma

GINOWAN, Okinawa — Almost 24,000 people surrounded Marine Corps Air Station Futenma here Sunday, forming a 6.8-mile human chain to demand the air base close.

European and Pacific Stars & Stripes
http://www.stripesonline.com/article.asp?section=104&article=29125

Depended on celestial navigation

the Underground Railroad, the South/North escape routes used by freedom-seeking slaves during the 19th century.
Slaves traveling the Underground Railroad, usually on foot, depended on celestial navigation to find their way northward. They continually looked to the Big Dipper and the North Star for direction.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NASA CORE - Videotape/Underground Railroad: Connections to Freedom and Science
http://catalog.core.nasa.gov/core.nsf/item/008.0-10V

NASA's NOAA-N Launch Delayed Again

Launch of NASA's NOAA-N satellite aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket has been delayed again due to ground support equipment problems. The next attempt is scheduled for a launch window extending from 6:22:01 a.m. to 6:32:01 a.m. EDT on May 14.
NASA - NOAA-N
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/main/index.html

The laboratory creation of chimeras

-- animals with mixed-species heritage -- has become so advanced that scientists have drawn up regulations to prevent the production of creatures that blur the line between animal and human.
The National Academies last week outlined guidelines for scientists who want to work with certain types of chimeras.
Wired News: Careful How You Monkey With DNA
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67395,00.html

the space smell, a sense of deja vu

it'll be four years -- on STS-102 in 2001.
One of the things that struck me when I went on the Space Station, especially the Russian segment, was, it was a sense of deja vu -- it was like being on Mir again because the Russian segment is very much like Mir. It even smelt like Mir.
The air treatment systems are the same and they leave that slight residual odor. Sergei Krikalev, one of the senior Russian cosmonauts, says it's "the space smell." You get used to it. But I was really struck by this deja vu sense I had when I went into the Russian segment of the Space Station.

NASA - Preflight Interview: Andy Thomas
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/preparingtravel/rtf_interview_thomas.html

For a manned mission to Mars in 2020

Using NASA's microgravity facilities, the duo hope to develop preventive medicines that the astronauts can take with them to guard against bone-mass loss caused by long-term space exposure.
One of the main limitations to long space travel is space radiation, and we plan to enhance the natural killer cells in astronauts to tackle the damages.

Wired News: Careful With That Petri Dish
http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,64577,00.html

without risking scientific suicide

"The life on Mars issue has recently undergone a paradigm shift," said Ian Wright, an astrobiologist at the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute at the Open University in Britain, "to the extent now that one can talk about the possibility of present life on Mars without risking scientific suicide."

Wired News: Scientists: Life on Mars Likely
http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,67315,00.html

International Space Station Status Report: SS05-023

Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer John Phillips are moving full speed ahead into their Expedition 11 maintenance and science work aboard the International Space Station.
Krikalev replaced a liquid processing component of the Russian Elektron oxygen generation system yesterday. It failed almost immediately prompting additional troubleshooting today.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/may/HQ_ss05023_ISS_status_report.html

NASA Announces New Window for Shuttle Return to Flight

NASA announced today July 13 to 31 is the new launch planning window for the Space Shuttle Discovery mission. The new window gives the agency time to do additional work to ensure a safe Return to Flight for Discovery and its crew.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/apr/HQ_05113_RTF_Change.html