Also on the Ares blog, Robert Wall reports on Norway's commitment to purchase the JSF. He writes: “That Norway would go ahead with buying the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been more or less a given as long as the U.S. showed its willingness to make the aircraft a home for Kongsberg's stealthy Joint Strike Missile. That has now apparently happened.” Some background and pertinent details of the deal are listed.
While NASA astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are fully booked with scientific and engineering research for now, most of that work has involved projects the U.S. space agency is funding
China continues to find itself shut out of the International Space Station, blocked by U.S. congressional anger over the way the nation treats its dissidents and regional separatists. But China takes the long view and its leaders appear willing to do whatever it takes to establish a Chinese presence in space eventually. Last week the crew of Shenzhou 9—mission commander Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang, the first Chinese woman in space, and Liu Yang—entered the Tiangong-1 spacecraft launched earlier (see photo).
In regard to the item “Sense of Disproportion” in the Washington Outlook column (AW&ST May 28, p. 22), the National Guard needs a real mission to justify its existence. One such assignment could involve combating wildfires. Four regions in the U.S. should be established: NE, SE, NW and SW. In each, a centrally located base should be equipped with a fleet of modern, capable water bombers. The Guard could fight fires locally or be combined with other regions to combat the super fires that all too often rage.
The number-crunching capability of the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA's Ames Research Center has been boosted by 14% to 1.24 petaflops—a quadrillion calculations per second. If the world's population did a calculation a second, it would take 370 days to complete what Pleiades can accomplish in 60 sec. The upgrade is the eighth performed on the supercomputer since its installation in 2008 at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at Ames.
External pressures and unreasonable expectations contributed to the losses of Challenger and Columbia. I hope emerging manned commercial space ventures do not fall victim to similar traps. Alexandria, Va.
USAF Col. Sean L. Murphy has been selected for promotion to brigadier general and has been named commander of the Air Force Medical Operations Agency, Office of the Surgeon General, San Antonio. He has been deputy assistant surgeon general in the Directorate of Healthcare Operations at USAF headquarters at the Pentagon. Brig. Gen. Francis L. Hendricks, who has been commander of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service in Dallas, has been named special assistant to the deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services at USAF headquarters.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has approved the initial operations capability for a sensors package to upgrade the largest spacecraft-tracking telescope in the Defense Department's inventory. Built by Boeing Defense, Space & Security for the AFRL under a $409 million contract, the sensors, control software and computer systems upgrade were made to the Advanced Electro-Optical System, a 12-ft.-dia. telescope that began operations in 2000 at the Maui Space Surveillance Complex on Mt. Haleakala, Hawaii.
Can we believe in the reliability of long-term airline traffic forecasts? Should we trust economists and industry experts who tell us how many commercial transports will be needed by 2050 to handle an impressive number of travelers? Will the world's airlines carry more than 10 billion passengers annually less than 40 years from now? And does it even make sense to try to predict how big the airline industry could be in 2150?
Buddy Walls (see photo) has been promoted to director of the Space Avionics Department from manager of the Avionics Systems Section in Southwest Research Institute's Space Science and Engineering Div. in San Antonio.
This month, the citizens of Munich made a decision that sent Germany's air transport industry into a state of shock. In a local referendum, a majority of voters opted against the construction of a third runway at Munich Airport. Legally, the vote is only binding for one year, but Munich's mayor has already stated that the he considers it's a long-term decision. A new runway in Munich is now on the back burner, if it ever happens at all.
Reducing energy consumption, not buying alterative fuels, is the only way the Pentagon can cut its fuel costs, says a report by the otherwise defense-friendly Rand Corp. think tank. “Alternative liquid fuels do not offer [the Defense Department] a way to appreciably reduce fuel costs,” concludes the new report for the Air Force. Instead, the armed service should use its resources to forge international security partnerships that promote the production and protect the supply of petroleum.
All Nippon Airways has adjusted its Boeing 787 order book to substitute four long-range -9 models for standard-sized -8s that were due to be delivered starting next April. The Tokyo-based launch customer for the twin-engine jet says it wants “greater flexibility” to expand its international route network. ANA initiated 787 international services last year with a Tokyo-Frankfurt route and expects to launch services from Tokyo to Seattle and San Jose, Calif., later this year. With the switch, ANA will take delivery of 36 787-8s and 19 787-9s.
The FAA's NextGen air traffic modernization program has cleared another hurdle, as the House Appropriations Committee approved nearly $1 billion for the program in a spending bill for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The bill also scraps controversial user fees that would have instituted a $100-per-flight charge for both commercial and business jets and nearly tripled a passenger security fee.
The U.S. Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program is 50-for-50 with the liftoff June 20 of a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on an Atlas V, notching a perfect record in 50 launches since August 2002. Here the Atlas V, a 401 configuration with a 4-meter payload fairing, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, with the NROL-38 payload. Liftoff was at 8:28 a.m. EDT, and the NRO termed the mission a success.
International Lease Finance Corp. CEO Henri Courpron is keeping his title, but he has been demoted to second in command and is losing $1 million in annual compensation because of a “personal relationship” with an employee under his supervision, says ILFC parent company American International Group.
