NASA's 'green' planetary test lander crashes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Earlier this week NASA safely landed a robotic rover on Mars about 150 million miles away. But on Thursday here on Earth, a test model planetary lander crashed and burned at Kennedy Space Center in Florida just seconds after liftoff.

The spider-like spacecraft called Morpheus was on a test flight at Cape Canaveral when it tilted, crashed to the ground and erupted in flames. It got only a few feet up in the air, NASA said.

NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone said it appears that the methane-and-liquid oxygen powered lander is a total loss. Nobody was hurt in the unmanned experiment and the flames were put out, she said.

NASA suspects a mechanical device that is part of its GPS navigation system, spokeswoman Brandi Dean said.

So far NASA has spent $7 million on the Morpheus program, but that includes parts for a still-to-be-built second lander.

Morpheus is a prototype for a cheap, environmentally friendly planetary lander. Thursday was the first time it had been tested untethered in a free flight. It had performed 19 flights at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where it was designed and made, and one more in Florida, but it was always tethered to a crane, Dean said.

The testing moved from Texas to Florida last week and Morpheus had a successful tether test on Friday. NASA had planned to run tests for three months. The plan was for flights over a specially created field designed to mimic the surface of the moon, with boulders, rocks, slopes and craters.

The lander was built mostly with low-cost, off-the-shelf materials. It was an attempt by NASA to use cheaper, more readily available and environmentally friendly rocket fuel. The space agency was considering it as a potential lander for places like the moon or an asteroid, figuring it would carry a human-like robot or small rover.

NASA promoted Morpheus as a "green" project because methane is more environmentally friendly than the toxic rocket fuels it uses. Methane, which is the main component of natural gas, is also cheaper and could even be made from ice on the moon or Mars, NASA figured.

Morpheus was early in the NASA experimental "test bed" process and the space agency hadn't committed to using the lander in any specific flight, NASA officials said.

NASA has parts and plans to build a second Morpheus lander, Dean said: "Hopefully, we'll be testing again before too long."

___

Online

Project Morpheus: http://morpheuslander.jsc.nasa.gov/

___

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

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Unique 'Green' Service Brings Organic to the Masses

Interest in eating healthy is growing, but accessing locally sourced or organic foods isn't always easy, especially for those living in the inner city or far flung rural communities.

That dilemma presented Matt Ewer and his wife, Elizabeth Blessing, with a business idea. They are co-founders of Green B.E.A.N. Delivery, an online home delivery service that's making it easier than ever for Midwest residents to eat healthy — all year round.

According the United States Department of Agriculture, nearly 5 percent of all food now purchased is organic and more than half of organic food is purchased in traditional grocery or big box stores. It's no longer the domain of health food stores. Still, it's not always easy for people in cities or rural communities to get find it and that's where Green B.E.A.N. Delivery comes in.

The company brings locally grown organic produce and natural groceries directly to consumer's homes in six Midwestern cities. By connecting Midwest food producers with Midwest communities through its year-round home delivery service, the company has created a sustainable network promoting the health of the community, local economy and the environment. More than 10,000 familiesuse Green B.E.A.N. Delivery, the company said.

"We deliver organic produce and natural groceries directly to our members' doorsteps," Ewer said. "Our company makes healthy, local and sustainably grown foods convenient, affordable and accessible to Midwest communities, while providing an avenue for local artisans and farmers to share their food crafts with the local community."

B.E.A.N is an acronym for the larger initiatives the company is pushing forward: Biodynamic, Education, Agriculture and Nutrition. Green B.E.A.N. Delivery has spawned several sister companies that have been developed to strengthen its multi-faceted approach to advocating sustainability within our current food systems.

Those include: Tiny Footprint Distribution, which distributes locally sourced products to retail establishments, Farm to Kitchen Foods, which sells healthy, shelf stable food with a focus on local and organic ingredients, Break Room Bins, which provides healthy food options for people in the workplace and The Feel Good Farm, which is Green B.E.A.N. Delivery's own certified organic, 60-acre farm in Sheridan, Ind.

BusinessNewsDaily asked Ewer to tell us a little bit more about his successful venture and how his original idea has blossomed into a variety of new businesses.

BusinessNewsDaily: How long have you been in business?

Matt Ewer: My wife, Elizabeth Blessing, and I founded the company in early 2007 and currently service areas of Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.

BND: Did you have a formal business plan or did your business just evolve naturally?

M.E.: I did have a business plan, but in the same breath, there has been a lot of natural evolution from 2007 to present. There was no blueprint for me to follow, so there has been a good deal of trial and error, creativity and, of course, very hard work. We have been fortunate enough to accumulate an incredible set of employees that share in our vision. They have made our company’s vision come to fruition.

[Do you feel 'green guilt'? You're not alone.]

BND: Either way, how close has your business stayed to what you originally envisioned it to be?

M.E.: I often get the question if I expected our company to be where it is today. My short and sweet answer is absolutely. We are on track with what my wife and I envisioned when we started Green B.E.A.N Delivery. That being said, we are at the tip of the iceberg. There is so much for our team to achieve. Right now, I am focused on the agricultural side of our company. We are sowing seeds for the future and establishing "The Feel Good Farm" as a leader in Midwest sustainable agriculture.

My main focus for Green B.E.A.N. Delivery is my favorite department, human resources. We are working to make sure that the success of our company is built through solid design and well thought out technique when it comes to the relationship between employer and employees.

BND: How did you finance your statup?

M.E.: The most important thing that I did to help finance my company is making sure that I understood the business I was entering before I started my company. I took out a very small business loan to start the company and made sound decisions along our growth curve. We are very thankful for the support of the community of Indianapolis. Our members have enabled us to create a dynamic food company. We will continue to diversify our services to the community and educate them about the importance of eating healthy and supporting family farms.

BND: How much did you invest?

M.E.: Everything that I have, both financially and mentally. And, now that we have the farm, you can throw physically in there, as well. At this point, we are investing in the business. We have put everything the company has generated back into the company or the individuals that make the company grow and keep improving.

BND: If you had it to do over again, what would you do differently when starting your business?

M.E.: I wouldn't change anything. Everyone makes mistakes and I have learned from the ones I have made as a company owner. I have learned from mistakes I almost made. I have also learned from our successes and the employees I work with every day. I started the company slow and took a grass roots approach. I have basically performed every position. Now that the company is larger, my managers are starting to teach me lessons about their departments. That is rewarding and shows the power of the culture we have built and are continuing to build upon. I believe that running a company follows a certain evolution. That is often times accompanied by a personal evolution. I learn from my company each day and feel fortunate to have this lesson in my life.

BND: What's your best advice for someone with a great business idea who wants to give it a shot?

M.E.: Have passion for what you choose or don't bother. You have to love your industry and you have to understand why you are entering that mode of business. What impact does it have on community? And, what about that business is going to drive you and the decisions you are going to need to make?

Owning your own business is difficult. There is an endless amount of responsibility and you cannot escape your own business. Love what you do and live what you love. If you have that in you, then go for it. Make conscious decisions and fight your way into the market. Otherwise, continue to clock in and clock out.

This story was provided by BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience.

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Exhibit imagines utopian, green cities in 2030

By Karen Matthews, Associated PressNEW YORK — Imagine no cars — or fewer, anyway.In New York, a two-mile stretch of the FDR Drive parkway is torn down to open lower Manhattan for parks and plazas, and bicyclists are given their own lane on the Brooklyn Bridge.

An elevated highway in Guangzhou, China, is transformed into a pedestrian promenade and rooftops are linked by raised walkways and bikeways.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, traditional bike taxis called becaks are re-engineered to be lighter and easier to steer.

These three cities and seven others are featured in an exhibit on environmentally friendly transportation of the future opening Thursday in New York.

The exhibit, titled "Our Cities Ourselves," will be at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village through Sept. 11 before traveling to the other cities, organizers said.

"We hired 10 architects from cities all over the world to help us imagine what their cities might look like in 2030 if we made the cities more human scale, more environmentally sustainable," said Walter Hook, the executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which organized the exhibit with funding from the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation.

Hook cradled his bike helmet in one arm as he provided a tour of the exhibit.

"We're essentially trying to send the message that if cities don't move in this direction we're going to be faced with cataclysmic climate change, because in the developing world the use of private automobiles is escalating at double-digit rates," Hook said.

The cities were chosen because Hook and the New York-based ITDP have relationships with them, having helped design bus systems in Jakarta; Mexico City; Ahmedabad, India, and other locales.

The exhibit includes images and 3D models of urban neighborhoods as they are envisioned in 2030 alongside current photos of the same neighborhoods.

In the township of Soweto, in Johannesburg, current photos show low-rise housing and not much else. But the Soweto of 2030 is bustling with markets and public spaces.

"You weren't allowed to open shops, traditionally, under apartheid," Hook said. "So what we've done is we've sort of reimagined it as a kind of new town ... where people could actually work and shop in downtown Soweto."

The model of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, shows a network of rooftop footpaths evoking Dr. Seuss.

"In China, anything's possible," Hook said.

The utopian vision of lower Manhattan shows pedestrians, bicycles and very few cars. Architect Michael Sorkin, who designed the New York piece of the exhibit, said he thinks it's "completely feasible."

"The streets were laid out by the Dutch in a fundamentally medieval pattern," he said. "They're not made for cars."

In the New York of the 2000s, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has won plaudits from alternative transportation advocates for putting pedestrian plazas in the middle of Times Square, near Broadway theaters, and in Herald Square, where the Macy's flagship department store is located.

Sorkin said his own ideas such as tearing down the lower part of the FDR Drive, which runs along the east side of Manhattan, are equally plausible.

"A year ago nobody thought you could close Broadway," he said. "But suddenly it's closed, and everyone loves it."

"Our Cities Ourselves" travels to Guangzhou after New York. The other cities in the exhibit are Ahmedabad, India; Budapest, Hungary; Buenos Aires; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Jakarta, Indonesia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Mexico City, Mexico and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.

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Space Just Too Big for Green Lanterns to Patrol, Astronomer Says (SPACE.com)

Seth Robison, Newsarama Contributor
Space.com Seth Robison, Newsarama Contributor
space.com – Fri Jun 17, 2:14 pm ET

The self-appointed intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps has over 7,200 members, which sounds like a lot, until you learn that their jurisdiction is the entire universe. They are headquartered on the planet Oa, which in the (current) DC Universe resides at the universe’s very center.

Space is, put simply, a very big place, one that might just go on forever, and if that is the case, how can it have a center? Even if it does, can the universe be served and protected by just 7,200 fearless men, women, crystalline entities, ambulatory vegetation and a sentient planet?

"In our current understanding of the cosmos, which is based on Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and subsequent cosmological research, the universe has no center," astronomer Mark Hammergren, of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, told Newsarama, a sister site to SPACE.com. "Whether or not the universe is finite or infinite in extent, it came into existence at the same time everywhere." [10 Coolest Green Lantern Ring Constructs]

That phenomenon is commonly known as the Big Bang, but it might have been not be what people think, Hammergren continued, "The Big Bang is commonly pictured as a tremendous explosion in space, with matter flying outwards and expanding away from each other. A natural thought is to follow the expansion backwards to find the center of the universe. This is based on an incorrect assumption. Matter and energy did not fly out into preexisting space; space itself came into existence in the Big Bang, and has been expanding since then. So there is no real 'center,' even if the expansion of space conspires to create this illusion. No matter which galaxy you live in, you will see the other galaxies moving away from you, which makes it appear that you are the center of this motion."

Although the current understanding may preclude the notion of a 'universal center' from which the Green Lantern Corps could operate from, it's still not outside the realm of possibility. [Infographic: Science Fiction Superhero – Green Lantern]

For there to be a center, Hammergren explained, the universe would have to be in one of several forms: finite and not curved back on itself, infinite but empty of matter beyond a certain distance or both finite in extent and empty beyond a certain distance regardless of the overall curvature (due to the bending of space by the force of gravity). Although Hammergren warned, "As far as we can currently tell, the universe appears to be much larger than the observable universe and not curved back on itself."

Another concept hampering comic fans from 'finding' Oa and the center of the universe is sheer mathematics.

Hammergren breaks it down: "The universe is not infinitely old; it appears to have formed about 13.7 billion years ago, and light does not travel infinitely fast. Therefore, the farthest objects we can possibly see are those that are close enough to us that their light could have reached us in 13.7 billion years. Anything farther away is too far for their light to have reached us. Because the universe is expanding, those objects that are currently too far from us to be visible will always be too far away to be visible."

Simply, the universe is so big, you could travel in any direction at the speed of light for over a dozen billion years, and you won't find an edge (if there even was one), you'd just be changing your frame of reference. Without being able to see the 'edge' of the universe, we can't use that as a point of reference to trace back to the center.

It gets worse, especially if you are one of the two people assigned to patrol one of the 3,600 sectors into which the leadership of the Green Lantern Corps has divided the universe.

If the universe is just 13.7 billion years old, based on what is possible to be perceived and by using the shape of a cube just to provide a frame of reference, the 'volume' of space that has to be patrolled by just one pair of corps members is about 714.3*10^28 (or 714.3 septillion) cubic light-years in volume. Since a light-year is defined as the distance that an object traveling at the speed of light will cover in a year, a single one is just under 10 trillion kilometers (9.46 × 10^12 km) in length.

Under our current understanding of the universe, having a centrally located base of operations on a planet like Oa is not just impossible, but impractical.

Even if Green Lantern rings were able to transport their bearers at speeds significantly faster than light, the sheer amount of space in each sector would make patrol impossible and hamper response times. The universe is just too big, and no amount of willpower will cover it up.

This story has been provided by Newsarama, a sister site of SPACE.com. Visit Newsarama on Facebook and Twitter.

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Green Thumb in Space: Astronaut to Grow Zero-G Cucumbers (SPACE.com)

Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa may be leaving planet Earth behind for a months-long trip to the International Space Station this week, but he won't forget his veggies: Furukawa plans to grow cucumbers in space in the name of science.

During his 5 1/2-month space trek, Furukawa will grow cucumbers on the space station for an experiment to study how future space travelers can harvest their own food on longer missions that push further out into the solar system, reported the Associated Press.

Furukawa, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), NASA astronaut Mike Fossum and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov are slated to launch toward the International Space Station today (June 7) at 4:12 p.m. EDT (2012 GMT). The spaceflying trio will lift off in a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

No space taste tests

But while the space cucumbers will be grown in orbit, the astronauts on the space station will not be sampling them.

"We wish we were able to eat the cucumbers, but we have not been allowed," Furukawa told the AP at a recent news briefing.

Planting and growing cucumbers is one of many experiments that Furukawa, a surgeon by trade, will participate in during his time at the space station.

"About 12 years ago astronaut Chiaki Mukai performed tens of scientific experiments on board the shuttle, on STS-95, and one of the experiments was an experiment for a scientist in Japan, plant scientist, and he found out that small node peg, let me talk about that," Furukawa said in a preflight NASA interview. "On the ground only one peg is made at the time of germination, but under microgravity two pegs were made at the time of sprouting, and also he found out that the side roots grow towards water. It was very interesting." [6 Everyday Things That Happen Strangely in Space]

Weightless cucumbers

To build on this previous research, Furukawa's cucumber experiments will focus on how a specific plant hormone, called auxin, behaves in microgravity.

"Auxin is related to organ, generation as well as g load or gravity sensation, so by knowing how the auxin distribution is controlled we may be able to control the plant growth, or it may make way for the future plant factory in space. So I'm very excited," Furukawa said.

As the newest space station crewmembers, Furukawa, Fossum and Volkov are scheduled to dock at the orbiting outpost at 5:22 p.m. EDT (2122 GMT) on Thursday (June 9). They will join NASA astronaut Ron Garan and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko, who have been at the space station since early April. The six crewmates will make up the station's Expedition 28.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Exhibit imagines utopian, green cities in 2030

By Karen Matthews, Associated PressNEW YORK — Imagine no cars — or fewer, anyway.In New York, a two-mile stretch of the FDR Drive parkway is torn down to open lower Manhattan for parks and plazas, and bicyclists are given their own lane on the Brooklyn Bridge.

An elevated highway in Guangzhou, China, is transformed into a pedestrian promenade and rooftops are linked by raised walkways and bikeways.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, traditional bike taxis called becaks are re-engineered to be lighter and easier to steer.

These three cities and seven others are featured in an exhibit on environmentally friendly transportation of the future opening Thursday in New York.

The exhibit, titled "Our Cities Ourselves," will be at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village through Sept. 11 before traveling to the other cities, organizers said.

"We hired 10 architects from cities all over the world to help us imagine what their cities might look like in 2030 if we made the cities more human scale, more environmentally sustainable," said Walter Hook, the executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which organized the exhibit with funding from the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation.

Hook cradled his bike helmet in one arm as he provided a tour of the exhibit.

"We're essentially trying to send the message that if cities don't move in this direction we're going to be faced with cataclysmic climate change, because in the developing world the use of private automobiles is escalating at double-digit rates," Hook said.

The cities were chosen because Hook and the New York-based ITDP have relationships with them, having helped design bus systems in Jakarta; Mexico City; Ahmedabad, India, and other locales.

The exhibit includes images and 3D models of urban neighborhoods as they are envisioned in 2030 alongside current photos of the same neighborhoods.

In the township of Soweto, in Johannesburg, current photos show low-rise housing and not much else. But the Soweto of 2030 is bustling with markets and public spaces.

"You weren't allowed to open shops, traditionally, under apartheid," Hook said. "So what we've done is we've sort of reimagined it as a kind of new town ... where people could actually work and shop in downtown Soweto."

The model of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, shows a network of rooftop footpaths evoking Dr. Seuss.

"In China, anything's possible," Hook said.

The utopian vision of lower Manhattan shows pedestrians, bicycles and very few cars. Architect Michael Sorkin, who designed the New York piece of the exhibit, said he thinks it's "completely feasible."

"The streets were laid out by the Dutch in a fundamentally medieval pattern," he said. "They're not made for cars."

In the New York of the 2000s, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has won plaudits from alternative transportation advocates for putting pedestrian plazas in the middle of Times Square, near Broadway theaters, and in Herald Square, where the Macy's flagship department store is located.

Sorkin said his own ideas such as tearing down the lower part of the FDR Drive, which runs along the east side of Manhattan, are equally plausible.

"A year ago nobody thought you could close Broadway," he said. "But suddenly it's closed, and everyone loves it."

"Our Cities Ourselves" travels to Guangzhou after New York. The other cities in the exhibit are Ahmedabad, India; Budapest, Hungary; Buenos Aires; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Jakarta, Indonesia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Mexico City, Mexico and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.

View the original article here