Mystery 'missile' likely a jet contrail, says expert

Update at 2147 GMT on Wednesday: The Pentagon says the contrail was caused by a plane. "We have no evidence to suggest that this was anything other than a contrail caused by an aircraft," Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said, according to ABC News.

Update at 1640 GMT on Wednesday: The Federal Aviation Administration says no fast-moving unidentified objects were seen in the area on radar and no commercial companies had applied to launch rockets from the region.

What appeared to be a rocket blasting into the skies off the southern California coast on Monday was probably just an approaching plane, a Harvard astronomer who tracks space launches says.

Around 5 pm local time on Monday, a KCBS news helicopter shot a video showing what appeared to be a missile launch above the Pacific Ocean. A Pentagon spokesman said that so far there is no explanation for the observation, according to the Associated Press. "Nobody within the Department of Defense that we've reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said. "So far, we've come up empty with any explanation."

So what was it? Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer who tracks space launches at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says it was probably an optical illusion caused by a plane.

"If it's coming over the horizon, straight at you, then it rises quickly above the horizon," he told New Scientist. "You can't tell because it's so far away that it's getting closer to you – you'd think it was just going vertically up," he says.

The fact that it occurred at twilight would have emphasised the contrail, he adds. "It's critical that it's at sunset – it's a low sun angle. It really illuminates the contrail and makes it look very dense and bright." See other jet contrails that look like missiles.

Airborne Laser?

"I would say that's the 90 per cent guess," he says. "There's still a 10 per cent chance in my mind that it is a missile contrail, but if so, what isn't clear to me is whether anyone but this helicopter saw it." Since no one in LA apparently reported seeing the missile, he says, that suggests either that it looked like a jet contrail from their perspective or that a relatively small rocket was responsible.

McDowell points out that the US Navy runs a base on San Nicolas Island, which lies 120 kilometres west of Los Angeles. Small rockets are launched there every few weeks, he says.

He says some of the rockets are used as targets for tests with the Airborne Laser, a Boeing 747 jet with a nose-mounted laser designed to shoot missiles down. "They've been flying this 747 around and using it to fire at little rockets they've launched from San Nicolas," McDowell says. "So you can imagine if this helicopter is zooming off the California coast a bit away from LA, near the San Nicolas area, and this thing goes up right next to it, the crew would go, 'Oh my goodness, what is that?'"

But a spokesman at the Missile Defense Agency, which launches those rockets, told New Scientist it was not one of their tests

 source :  new scientist

source : .

World's first space tourist 10 years on: Dennis Tito

Ten years ago, US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the world's first-ever space tourist. 

He is said to have paid $20m for his eight days in space. 

Mr Tito blasted off on 28 April 2001, but only after a struggle to get anyone to take him - the US space agency Nasa refused on the grounds that he was not a trained astronaut, so it was the Russians who facilitated the trip.

To date, only six people have followed in his footsteps - paying for a ticket to orbit in space.

Continue reading the main story

 

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I am one of the happiest humans alive ”

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But 10 years on, the lure of making space tourism more accessible to the masses is just as strong. 

Virgin Galactic hopes to take fare-paying passengers into space in around two years time, and a Russian company has even announced plans for a hotel in space.

On the tenth anniversary of the flight, Dennis Tito reflected on his eight-day holiday in space for BBC World Service.

Dennis Tito

There was absolutely no fear. I was so excited and so were my crew mates.

We were going to be in space, and we thought of nothing else, but the success of that mission.

Dennis Tito's jubilant return to Earth: "I just came back from paradise!" 

  Watch: Dennis Tito arrives at the International Space Station

So there was absolutely no apprehen

sion - it was just a really good, euphoric feeling that finally the day had come. 

It was not a shuttle, it was a space capsule; we were literally elbow-to-elbow.

The countdown began, and it went on schedule to the second. 

It was a little surprising when lift-off occurred - I thought it would be much more rigorous; you could barely feel it, and you could not hear it. 

When I witnessed a launch from the outside, even a mile away, there was a huge sound.

But we heard nothing of that within the space craft. 

'Like flying'

 

As we lifted off and the fuel began to burn, the vehicle accelerated and it kept on accelerating, and then you felt just a gradual build up of G-forces. 

Eight minutes and 50 seconds later, you experience your last of the three-gs, and then zero-gs when the engine shuts down - that is the most spectacular moment of the entire flight.

At burn out you become weightless; there are pencils that are hung from strings in the cabin, and at orbit insertion, those pencils start to just float.

Continue reading the main story

 

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It was a sense of completeness - from then on, everything is a bonus”

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And then looking to my right, out of the window, I could see the blackness of space, I could see Earth, and the curvature of Earth, and the sight of Earth from space was just spectacular.

I cannot ever duplicate that euphoric feeling that I had at that moment.

For me it was a 40-year goal. Often achieving a major goal in life occurs

slowly, but this was instant - it was just at that precise moment.

It was once we got out of the space suit that we were able to float around and experience weightlessness. 

It is really extraordinary, because there is nowhere on earth that we - or any of our ancestors in the entire history of evolution - experience that. 

It was a wonderful experience; the feeling of floating is just unbelievable. Moving around is not difficult and you learn very quickly. 

When we were on the International Space Station we had more room - you would push off from one area, very gently, and you would fly to ano

ther area. 

It was like flying, and that was a lot of fun!

  Dennis Tito said he could not duplicate the feeling of seeing Earth from space for the first time 

Vivid Earth

 

It took two days of orbiting the Earth, 16 orbits a day, before we caught up with the station.

There were three crew members who were there for about two months as part of the long-term crew, so they don't see many human beings, and they welcomed us with open arms.

I think we have a much better view of the Earth from the International Space Station.

The port hole that we would actually look out at the earth was through the floor, so I was always looking at earth. 

Then we had some port holes that looked out to the side, and we could see the edges of the Earth - so we had two different kinds of views. 

We would go from one to the other, and I would spend most of the 45 minutes - which is half of one orbit - and be either videotaping the view, or just sitting for 45 minutes, peering out, listening to opera, and just enjoying the experience.

The images are vivid in my mind. I continue to enjoy it every day!

It went very quickly and probably the most disappointing thing for me was after a total of eight days in space, I had to return to Earth. 

I would have happily stayed up there for month

s!

For me, there was very little transition from the space flight to Earth.

Within 48 hours I was actually back to my running - I ran a couple of miles. 

With Nasa, there was a strong feeling that my flight shouldn't take place.

And I think it's somewhat understandable, it was the first truly private space flight. 

And I think that they were concerned, number one, about me being a private citizen; and number two, that my age may not have qualified me.

They had probably some reason to be concerned.

Space future

 

I hope that tens of thousands of people can experience what I experienced, for 5% of the cost. 

  "I continue to enjoy it every day": Dennis Tito 10 years on 

I believe there will be a time, it may take 10 or 20

years, where the cost for flying in orbit might be as low as a million dollars in today's money.

A million dollars is certainly a lot of money, but there are many millionaires in the world today, and I know people that would spend their last penny to have this experience. 

I often thought that if I did spend my last penny, I could li

ve on social security for the rest of my life and still be happy, because I'd achieved what I wanted to achieve.

It was a sense of completeness - from then on, everything is a bonus. And the last 10 years, everything since then, has been just extra.

And I think I am one of the happiest humans alive because of that.

source : BBC

Mysterious Stone Spheres in Costa Rica Investigated ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2010)

John Hoopes, University of Kansas associate professor of anthropology and director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program, recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica where he and colleagues evaluated ancient stone spheres for UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization that might grant the spheresWorld Heritage Status. (Credit: Courtesy of John Hoopes)

 

So perhaps John Hoopes is the closest thing at the University of Kansas to the movie action hero.

Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program, recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica where he and colleagues evaluated the stone balls for UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization that might grant the spheres World Heritage Status.

His report will help determine if sites linked to the massive orbs will be designated for preservation and promotion because of their "outstanding value to humanity."

Hoopes, who researches ancient cultures of Central and South America, is one of the world's foremost experts on the Costa Rican spheres. He explained that although the stone spheres are very old, international interest in them is still growing.

"The earliest reports of the stones come from the late 19th century, but they weren't really reported scientifically until the 1930s -- so they're a relatively recent discovery," Hoopes said. "They remained unknown until the United Fruit Company began clearing land for banana plantations in southern Costa Rica."

According to Hoopes, around 300 balls are known to exist, with the largest weighing 16 tons and measuring eight feet in diameter. Many of these are clustered in Costa Rica's Diquis Delta region. Some remain pristine in the original places of discovery, but many others have been relocated or damaged due to erosion, fires and vandalism.

The KU researcher said that scientists believe the stones were first created around 600 A.D., with most dating to after 1,000 A.D. but before the Spanish conquest.

"We date the spheres by pottery styles and radiocarbon dates associated with archeological deposits found with the stone spheres," Hoopes said. "One of the problems with this methodology is that it tells you the latest use of the sphere but it doesn't tell you when it was made. These objects can be used for centuries and are still sitting where they are after a thousand years. So it's very difficult to say exactly when they were made."

Speculation and pseudoscience have plagued general understanding of the stone spheres. For instance, publications have claimed that the balls are associated with the "lost" continent of Atlantis. Others have asserted that the balls are navigational aids or relics related to Stonehenge or the massive heads on Easter Island.

"Myths are really based on a lot of very rampant speculation about imaginary ancient civilizations or visits from extraterrestrials," Hoopes said.

In reality, archaeological excavations in the 1940s found the stone balls to be linked with pottery and materials typical of pre-Columbian cultures of southern Costa Rica.

"We really don't know why they were made," Hoopes said. "The people who made them didn't leave any written records. We're left to archeological data to try to reconstruct the context. The culture of the people who made them became extinct shortly after the Spanish conquest. So, there are no myths or legends or other stories that are told by the indigenous people of Costa Rica about why they made these spheres."

Hoopes has a created a popular Web page to knock down some of the misconceptions about the spheres. He said the stones' creation, while vague, certainly had nothing to do with lost cities or space ships.

"We think the main technique that was used was pecking and grinding and hammering with stones," said Hoopes. "There are some spheres that have been found that still have the marks of the blows on them from hammer stones. We think that that's how they were formed, by hammering on big rocks and sculpting them into a spherical shape."

source : BBC

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