California Science Center Names New Wing for Space Shuttle Endeavour

When NASA's space shuttle Endeavour lands at the California Science Center in Los Angeles this fall, it will be displayed in a temporary exhibit, and later a new museum facility named for an entrepreneur, explorer and philanthropist.

The California Science Center (CSC) announced last week that it was naming its space shuttle display pavilion and planned Air and Space Center after the late Samuel Oschin. The exhibit's dedication was made in appreciation for a "transformational gift" from the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation, which was founded in 1981 to support a variety of causes related to astronomy, the arts, medicine, advocacy, and education.

"We're tremendously grateful to receive this extraordinary gift," Jeffrey Rudolph, president of the California Science Center, said in a statement. "Combined with the generous support already provided by foundations, individuals, and corporations throughout our community, we are now close to the halfway point in achieving our $200 million [Team Endeavour] campaign goal."

Launch pad for creativity

With Endeavour standing vertically as its centerpiece, the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will invite guests to investigate scientific and engineering principles related to atmospheric flight and the exploration of the universe. [Gallery: Shuttle Endeavour Construction Photos]

"Integrating hands-on exhibits to encourage active learning and a unique collection of aircraft and spacecraft, this new facility will be a launch pad for creativity and innovation," Rudolph said. "It'll inspire the next generation of explorers and scientists and strengthen the science center's ability to stimulate curiosity and inspire science learning."

While the air and space center is developed over the next five years, the youngest of NASA's winged orbiters will be exhibited in the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion, which will open this fall. A NASA Boeing 747 jumbo jetliner is scheduled to ferry Endeavour to Los Angeles in September. Soon after, the shuttle will be transported over land to the science center.

Dedicated dreamer

"Today pays tribute first and foremost to my husband, and his passion for discovery, philanthropy, and the pursuit of knowledge," Lynda Oschin said. "This is Sam's vision and represents truly everything my husband dreamed, loved and believed in."

Samuel Oschin dedicated himself to improving the quality of life in the Los Angeles community. His success in a range of enterprises, from manufacturing to real estate, enabled his adventures to Africa, the North Pole, the Amazon and a 100-mile trek retracing Hannibal's crossing of the Alps.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came to the CSC to thank the Oschin Family Foundation for their support.

"On behalf of the City of Los Angeles, I express heartfelt thanks," Villaraigosa remarked. "Their generous donation ensures that space shuttle Endeavour has a world-class facility in which to reside, a place that will inspire youth to dream of future space exploration, stimulating science and math education for generations, and stimulating tourism to Los Angeles along with it."

Visit shuttles.collectspace.com for continuing coverage of the delivery and display of NASA's retired space shuttles.

Follow collectSPACE on Facebook and Twitter @collectSPACE and editor Robert Pearlman @robertpearlman. Copyright 2012 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

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India Declares Open Season on Tiger Poachers

The world's "most dangerous game" is on. A state in western India has given its forest rangers permission to shoot poachers on sight in an effort to curb poaching of tigers and other endangered wildlife.

Forest guards in the state of Maharashtra should not be "booked for human rights violations when they have taken action against poachers," Maharashtra Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam said Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. The state even plans to send more rangers and trucks into the forest, and will offer secret payments to informers who give tips about poachers and animal smugglers, Kadam said.

Although no tiger poachers have ever been shot in Maharashtra before, conservationists believe the threat could significantly deter wildlife criminals. A similar measure permitting guards to shoot poachers in Assam, a state in northeastern India, has facilitated the recovery of the local population of endangered one-horned rhinos.

India's wildlife reserves are home to half of the world's estimated 3,200 tigers, and though tiger hunting is banned there, illegal poaching remains a serious issue thanks to demand for tiger parts driven by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. Fourteen tigers have been killed by poachers in India so far this year — one more than in all of 2011 — and eight of the poaching deaths occurred in Maharashtra.

"These poachers have lost all fear. They just go in and poach what they want because they know the risks are low," said Divyabhanusinh Chavda, who heads the World Wildlife Fund in India. In many of the country's reserves, guards are armed with little more than sticks.

Permission to kill poachers with impunity as well as the state's offer to pay informers could change the game.

Copyright 2012 Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Astronauts to Spend Memorial Day Unpacking Private Space Capsule

Rather than kick their feet up this Memorial Day weekend, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station will be unloading cargo from the first private spacecraft ever to visit the orbiting lab.

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule docked with the station Friday (May 25), making spaceflight history in the process. Another milestone came Saturday at about 5:53 a.m. EDT (0953 GMT), when the hatches between Dragon and the $100 billion orbiting lab were opened.

The station's crew is now able to access the 1,014 pounds (460 kilograms) of cargo that the Dragon spacecraft brought up. But unpacking the capsule in earnest won't begin until Memorial Day (Monday, May 28), NASA officials said.

"Monday and Tuesday are very big cargo days on the space station with regard to Dragon," NASA flight director Holly Ridings said during a post-docking briefing Friday. "At least one of the crewmembers will be doing cargo operations almost all of their work days those days." [SpaceX's Dragon Arrives at Space Station (Pictures)]

Six spaceflyers are currently living aboard the station: NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Joe Acaba, European astronaut Andre Kuipers, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin.

Pettit, Acaba and Kuipers will handle most of the unloading operations, which should take a total of about 25 hours, Ridings said. Dragon's cargo consists primarily of food and clothing for the station astronauts, as well as 15 student science experiments.

"There's about as much stuff in here as I can put in the back of my pickup truck and don't think there will be any issue with the three of us working and getting this thing unloaded over the next two or three days," Pettit told reporters Saturday.

SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to make 12 supply runs to the space station. Dragon's current mission is a demonstration flight to see if the capsule and SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket are ready to start the bona fide cargo deliveries.

If all goes well, the first of the 12 contracted missions could launch in September, NASA officials said.

Dragon is slated to stay docked to the orbiting lab until Thursday (May 31), when it will detach and return to Earth with about 1,400 pounds (635 kg) of used gear from the station. The capsule is scheduled to depart and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast, where SpaceX personnel plan to retrieve it with a recovery ship.

The six station astronauts have been busy for a while preparing for Dragon's arrival, but they'll get a chance to relax for at least part of the holiday weekend, Ridings said.

"We are going to give our crew some time off," Ridings said. "They've been working very hard over the last couple of days, so they'll have a little bit of time off over the weekend."

SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow contributed to this story. You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Global warming winner: Once rare butterfly thrives

WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is rescuing the once-rare brown Argus butterfly, scientists say.

Man-made climate is threatening the existence of many species, such as the giant polar bear. But in the case of the small drab British butterfly, it took a species in trouble and made it thrive.

It's all about food. Over about 25 years, the butterfly went from in trouble to pushing north in Britain where it found a veritable banquet. Now the butterfly lives in twice as large an area as it once did and is not near threatened, according to a study in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Decades ago, the brown Argus "was sort of a special butterfly that you would have to go to a special place to see and now it's a butterfly you can see in regular farmland or all over the place," said study co-author Richard Fox, an ecologist at Butterfly Conservation, a science and advocacy group in the United Kingdom.

Global warming helping the brown Argus is unusual compared to other species and that's why scientists are studying it more, said study co-author Jane Hill, a professor of ecology at the University of York.

Biologists expect climate change to create winners and losers in species. Stanford University biologist Terry Root, who wasn't part of this study, estimated that for every winner like the brown Argus there are three loser species, like the cuckoo bird in Europe. Hill agreed that it's probably a three-to-one ratio of climate change losers to winners.

As the world warms, the key interactions between species break down because the predator and prey may not change habitats at the same time, meaning some species will move north to cooler climes and won't find enough to eat, Root said.

"There are just so many species that are going to go extinct," Root said.

What makes the brown Argus different is that it found something new to eat, something even better than its old food, the less common rockrose plant, Hill said. The new food is a geranium and it is more widespread.

"It's almost like the whole of the buffet is now open to it," Hill said.

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Online:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

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

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First Video Captured by Google Glasses Hits the Web

Google has publicly unveiled new photos and the first video from the real view of their augmented reality glasses prototype. The images show what the wearer sees while reading a newspaper, catching a football in the backyard and helping a smiling child play on the jungle gym.

Such views don't necessarily represent anything people haven't seen before with head-mounted portable cameras. But they do hint at how Google Glasses could enable many people beyond geeky life-casters to capture a diverse array of moments in their lives — the video shows the bouncy viewpoint of the Google Glasses wearer doing flips on a trampoline.

Google tech lead Max Braun showed off the photos and video at the Google + Photographer's Conference on May 23.

The Internet search giant has yet to show off real images or photos of how the glasses could seamlessly integrate virtual information with what a person sees in the real world. Its earlier unveiling of "Project Glass" included a concept video that imagined a wearer getting social calendar reminders and map directions in his field of view.

Still, many members of the public still seem enthusiastic about just having a pair of glasses with a small camera attached. One of the top comments on the YouTube video of the trampoline jumping simply stated "Shut up and take my money!"

The most popular comment of all had a perhaps tongue-in-cheek suggestion for using the Google Glasses — "Good for POV [point-of-view] porn."

This story was provided by InnovationNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.

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Astronauts enter world's 1st private supply ship

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space station astronauts floated into the Dragon on Saturday, a day after its heralded arrival as the world's first commercial supply ship.

NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, the first one inside the docked capsule, said the Dragon looks like it carries about as much cargo as his pickup truck back home in Houston. It has the smell of a brand new car, he added.

"I spent quite a bit of time poking around in here this morning, just looking at the engineering and the layout, and I'm very pleased," Pettit said from the brilliant white compartment.

To protect against possible debris, Pettit wore goggles, a mask and a caver's light as he slid open the hatch of the newest addition to the International Space Station. The complex sailed 250 miles above the Tasman Sea, just west of New Zealand, as he and his crewmates made their grand entrance. The atmosphere was clean; no dirt or other particles were floating around.

"This event isn't just a simple door opening between two spacecraft — it opens the door to a future in which U.S. industry can and will deliver huge benefits for U.S. space exploration," the Space Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

The California-based SpaceX — formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — is the first private company to send a vessel to the space station. It's run by Elon Musk, a billionaire who helped create PayPal and founded the electric car company Tesla Motors.

Now that the space shuttles are retired, NASA is handing over orbital delivery work to American business in order to focus on bigger and better objectives, such as getting astronauts to asteroids and Mars. The space agency hopes astronaut ferry trips will follow soon; SpaceX contends its Dragons could be carrying space station astronauts up and down within three or four years.

Flight controllers were ecstatic to be at the cusp of this new commercial era.

"It's great to see you guys inside Dragon. It looks great," Mission Control radioed.

The six space station residents have until the middle of next week to unload Dragon's groceries and refill the capsule with science experiments and equipment for return to Earth. Unlike all the other cargo ships that fly to the orbiting lab, the Dragon is designed for safe re-entry. It will be freed on Thursday and aim for a Pacific splashdown.

The Dragon contains 1,000 pounds of food, clothes, batteries and other provisions. It will bring back 1,400 pounds' worth of gear.

Until now, only major governments have launched cargo ships to the space station. Russia, Japan and Europe will keep providing supplies, and Russia will continue to sell rocket rides to U.S. astronauts until SpaceX or other companies are ready to take over. Several American enterprises are competing for the honor.

Pettit noted that the Dragon — 19 feet tall and 12 feet wide — is roomier than the Russian Soyuz spacecraft he rode up in.

"Flying up in a human-rated Dragon is not going to be an issue," he assured reporters during a news conference.

The unmanned bell-shaped capsule was launched Tuesday from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Pettit used the space station's robot arm Friday to snare the craft.

During Saturday's news conference, Pettit played down his role in the historic event. He noted that the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, which opened up America's Western frontier, was commemorated by the pounding of a golden spike.

"This is kind of the equivalent of the golden spike," he said. "And one other interesting detail — nobody remembers who pounded that golden spike in. The important thing is to remember that the railroad was completed and was now open for use."

Success or failure of the new commercial space effort — the cornerstone of President Barack Obama's vision for NASA — does not hinge on a single mission but rather many missions over many years, Pettit stressed.

"Commercial spaceflight will blossom due to its own merits," he said.

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Online:

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/home/

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Mars or Bust! Scientists Flood NASA With 400 Ideas to Explore Red Planet

Scientists have responded in a big way to NASA's call to help reformulate its Mars robotic exploration strategy, submitting about 400 ideas and Red Planet mission concepts to the space agency.

NASA's Mars program suffered deep cuts in President Barack Obama's proposed 2013 budget, which was released in February. In response, NASA pulled out of the European-led ExoMars mission, which aims to launch an orbiter and a rover to the Red Planet in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

The agency also undertook a broad rethink of its Mars strategy, to figure out how best to explore the Red Planet with reduced funding. NASA asked the scientific community for ideas and was expecting to get about 200 proposals at its recent Concepts and Approaches for Mars Exploration Workshop in Houston, officials said.

Instead, twice that many submissions poured in from individuals and teams that included professional researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, NASA centers, federal laboratories, industry and
international partner organizations. [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

"This strong response sends a clear message that exploring Mars is important to future exploration," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. "The challenge now will be to select the best ideas for the next phase."

The ideas that survive the first cut will be presented during a workshop held June 12-14 in Houston. The workshop will help NASA's Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG) develop options for a strategy for exploration beginning as early as 2018, and stretching into the next decade and beyond, officials said.

The MPPG will be guided in part by the goals laid out by the U.S. National Research Council's Planetary Science Decadal Survey, which was released in 2011. The survey ranked a Mars sample-return mission as a top priority.

President Obama has also charged NASA with getting astronauts to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

The MPPG is expected to produce a report by the end of the summer. This report will be assessed by a team of NASA officials in charge of the agency-wide Mars reformulation strategy. Grunsfeld chairs this group, which also includes Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate; NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati; and NASA chief technologist Mason Peck.

This attempt to figure out its long-term Mars plans won't affect NASA's Red Planet efforts over the next few years. The agency's 1-ton Curiosity rover, for example, is slated to land at Mars' huge Gale Crater on the night of Aug. 5 to assess the Red Planet's habitability.

In 2013, NASA will launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter, the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. And the agency's Opportunity rover, which landed on the Red Planet in January 2004, is still chugging along. It's currently exploring the rim of the 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer) Endeavour Crater.

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

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