Aviation/Space

India plans $70 million mission to Mars in 2013

"India said on Thursday it will send a $70 million space mission to Mars this year to study the red planet’s atmosphere. The unmanned Mars orbiter mission, to be launched in October by the Indian Space Research Organisation, will undertake a 300-day journey to the planet to collect data about its climate and geology. India says the Mars mission will mark a significant step in its space programme, which has already placed a probe on the moon and envisages its first manned mission in 2016." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIndia plans $70 million mission to Mars in 2013

Russian meteor blast had force of 300-kiloton nuclear warhead

"The meteor that exploded over the Ural Mountains in Russia Friday now appears to have been a small asteroid clearly unrelated to 2012 DA14, which flitted past Earth Friday afternoon. Researchers now say the object had a mass of 7,000 metric tons (7,700 US tons) and a diameter of about 50 feet. The asteroid's breakup at an altitude some 12 to 15 miles above Russia's Chelyabinsk region represents the largest recorded asteroid encounter since 1908, when another asteroid or comet exploded over the Tunguska River in Siberia, leveling some 820 square miles of forest." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRussian meteor blast had force of 300-kiloton nuclear warhead

Man Sues TSA For $5 Million Following Peanut Butter Arrest

"An Arizona man who was arrested at the behest of the TSA, following a wisecrack over a jar of peanut butter is suing the federal agency for $5 million. Frank Hannibal, 50, was detained and dragged from LaGuardia Airport recently by police after a run-in with TSA agents over the jar of gourmet sandwich spread. 'The liquid oil that separated from the peanut butter had them baffled,' Hannibal told the New York Daily News. Hannibal spent the next 24 hours in a cell, during which time he was fed a peanut butter sandwich by cops who later charged him with the felony of 'falsely reporting an incident'." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMan Sues TSA For $5 Million Following Peanut Butter Arrest

FAA Releases New Drone List—Is Your Town on the Map?

"The Federal Aviation Administration has finally released a new drone authorization list. This list, released in response to EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, includes law enforcement agencies and universities across the country, and—for the first time—an Indian tribal agency. In all, the list includes more than 20 new entities over the FAA’s original list, bringing to 81 the total number of public entities that have applied for FAA drone authorizations through October 2012." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFAA Releases New Drone List—Is Your Town on the Map?

NASA knew Columbia crew would die but chose not to tell them

"A NASA flight director has revealed that personnel on the ground knew in 2003 that the Space Shuttle Columbia would not survive re-entry, but chose not to inform the vessel’s crew. According to an ABC News report from Thursday, when faced with the choice of letting the astronauts die trying to come home or leaving them to orbit until their air ran out, high-ranking NASA officials chose to let the Columbia crew die in ignorance of what was to befall them." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNASA knew Columbia crew would die but chose not to tell them

Man With 4th Amendment Written on Chest Wins Trial Over Airport Arrest

"Among other things, the federal lawsuit claimed wrongful detention and a breach of the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment. Tobey was on his way to Wisconsin for his grandmother’s funeral. Despite his detainment, he made his flight. According to the suit, while under interrogation, the authorities wanted to know 'about his affiliation with, or knowledge of, any terrorist organizations, if he had been asked to do what he did by any third party, and what his intentions and goals were.' Two weeks later, Henrico County prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charge against him, and he sued the Transportation Security Administration and others." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMan With 4th Amendment Written on Chest Wins Trial Over Airport Arrest

European Space Agency ponders asteroid-smashing mission

"The proposed mission, called AIDA (for 'Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment'), would consist of a pair of spacecraft (sadly, not named Armageddon and Deep Impact) flung at the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos. Didymos is actually a binary object consisting of a large primary mass and much smaller secondary satellite mass. The idea with the AIDA mission, which would take place near the end of 2022, is to accelerate a small kinetic impactor spacecraft to a relative velocity of 6.25 kilometers per second and crash it into the secondary Didymos mass. A second spacecraft would hold off a short distance away and measure the orbital deflection." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEuropean Space Agency ponders asteroid-smashing mission

Company plans to mine asteroids with ‘FireFlies’ spacecraft

"A US company said Tuesday it plans to send a fleet of spacecraft into the solar system to mine asteroids for metals and other materials in the hopes of furthering exploration of the final frontier. In a first step, the company plans to send 'asteroid-prospecting spacecraft' into the solar system, with the first — 55-pound (25-kilogram) 'FireFlies' — to be launched in 2015 on journeys of two to six months." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCompany plans to mine asteroids with ‘FireFlies’ spacecraft

Police Leave Explosive On Airplane

"Transit police who were using explosives to train bomb-sniffing dogs left one of the bombs aboard an Air Canada 767 that later carried passengers, a taxpayers group reported this week. The incident happened about two years ago, in January 2011, and was only confirmed after the group filed a Freedom of Information request. The dog handler noticed the device was missing two days after the training session, and reported it. Air Canada inspected the airplane 14 times, but the bomb was never found." Continue reading →

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X-ray full-body scanners to be taken out of U.S. airports

"According to Bloomberg News, OSI Systems, the company that makes the scanners, was unable to write a software program that would cover passengers’ genitals. The TSA has terminated its $5 million contract with OSI’s Rapiscan unit, which was awarded to the company with a software fix in mind. The TSA removed 76 of the Rapiscan machines from the nation’s busiest airports in 2011. The remaining 174 machines will now be decommissioned. The TSA plans to switch over to scanners manufactured by a company called L-3 Communications Holdings, which use radio signals rather than X-rays to scan passengers for weapons." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingX-ray full-body scanners to be taken out of U.S. airports