STS-131 Crew

According to NASA's website the STS-131 crew members are: Alan G. Poindexter, James P. Dutton Jr., Rick Mastracchio, Stephanie D. Wilson, Dorothy
M. Metcalf-Lindenburger, Naoko Yamazaki and Clayton C. Anderson.
They are scheduled to launch to the ISS abound the Space Shuttle Discovery on 5 April 2010.

Endeavour Completes Mission

I went to NASA's website to read this article, Endeavour Completes Mission.
The STS-130 crew aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour landed at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, according to this article.

Exploring the Cosmos With Stephen Hawking

I went to The Planetary Society's website to read this article, Exploring the Cosmos With Stephen Hawking.
According to this article, Dr. Stephen Hawking is scheduled to receive the Cosmos Award for Outstanding Public Presentation of Science from The Planetary Society on 27 Febrary 2010 in Cambridge, England.

Exoplanet's Methane Detected from Hawaii

A telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii has detected fluorescent infrared emission coming from methane in the atmosphere of a giant, Jupiter-like extrasolar planet. This is the first time that such a measurement has been made from Earth's surface -- the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have been necessary to make such discoveries in the past. The Mauna Kea telescope can observe IR spectral regions not possible with the space-based telescopes.

$1,000,000 for Superman Comic

A copy of the first comic book to feature Superman sold yesterday for 1 million dollars -- a new record: http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20100223/ENT/302230049/1001/rss.

Monthly Meeting

Next Sunday we have our regular monthly meeting At Books-A-Million in Colonial Heights around 2:00 PM.

Everyone is welcome!

Nicolas Copernicus

Nicolas Copernicus was born on 19 February 1473 in Torun, Poland.

Avatar

Al, Mike, Nik, Andrew, and I enjoyed a second viewing of the movie Avatar yesterday.

Endeavour is in Orbit

I heard the news on the radio at 0400 and went to NASA's website and found this article, Endeavour is in Orbit.
According to this article, Endeavour successfully launched and the STS-130 clock shows that the crew is about 47 minutes into the mission to the ISS.

EU: hackers broke into cap-and-trade system

I have been looking at articles on Cap and Trade and found this article, EU: hackers broke into cap-and-trade system, on The Boston Globe's website.
According to this article 3 million euros worth of pollution credits were stolen by hackers.
Some carbon trading in Germany was stopped in last week.

Carbon Watch

I followed a link from Fresh Air's website to Carbon Watch on PBS's FRONTLINE website http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/
When Terry Gross interviewed Mark Schapiro, I learned a few things about the economic side of Cap and Trade.
Especially how pollution credits are traded like stocks.
Here I followed a link to http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/01/20/pm-carbon-q/
Where I am reading this story, Clearing the air on carbon credits at Market Place's website.

Cap And Trade And The New Carbon Economy

I heard this story, Cap And Trade And The New Carbon Economy, during a Fresh Air program that aired a few days ago on NPR.
I learned a few things about the economic side of Cap and Trade that I did not know.

Remembering Columbia STS-107

I am looking at this, Remembering Columbia STS-107, at NASA's website http://history.nasa.gov/columbia/index.html
According to this account of the STS-107 mission, Space Shuttle Columbia launched on 16 January 2003.
Space Shuttle Columbia and crew reentered the atmosphere on 1 February 2003.
The shuttle suffered a serious failure as the result of a breach caused when form, falling from the external tank during launch, struck reinforced carbon control panels on the bottom of the left wing.

In Memory of
Rick D. Husband, Commander
William C. McCool, Pilot
Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander
David Brown, Mission Specialist
Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist
Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Mission Specialist
Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist