NASA Image of the Day, Dec 22nd...[ 1937 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Reflections

In this image from Friday, Dec. 17, space shuttle Discovery sat on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as its external fuel tank was filled with more than 535,000 gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen during a tanking test. Data from the ship's 89 sensors were evaluated after the tank returned to ambient temperature. 

 

This morning,Discovery arrived at the Vehicle Assembly Building, completing the 3.4 mile trek from Launch Pad 39A, known as a rollback, that began at 10:48 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010. 

 

There, technicians will take x-ray scans beneath the foam insulation of all 108 support beams, called stringers, on Discovery’s external fuel tank. They’ll also remove sensors on the external tank from last Friday’s tanking test and reapply foam to those areas.

 

Image Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Τετάρτη, 22 Δεκέμβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

South Korea-USA military exercises,,[ 1936 ]

New South Korea exercises to test border tension

 

North Korean soldiers hold exercises amid large-scale South Korean drills

 

BBC.,22 December 2010 Last updated at 04:52 GMT

South Korea has said it will hold new large-scale military drills involving ground and air live fire on Thursday.

Artillery, jets and about 800 soldiers will take part, the government said, alongside separate naval exercises that began on Wednesday.

Tension has been high since North Korea shelled the South's Yeonpyeong island last month, killing four South Koreans.

Drills by the South on Monday near Yeonpyeong sparked Northern threats of retaliation that did not materialise.

Huge scale

An army spokesman said Thursday's drill would be held at Pocheon, 20km (12 miles) south of the border - about 50km from central Seoul.

Exercises have been held at Pocheon before, but this would be on an unprecedented scale, the spokesman said.

"The scale of mechanised assets taking place is enormous. When we would normally have 6 K-9 mechanised artillery, we'll have 36.

"We'll have the F-15 jets firing. We'll have choppers. You can say most of the mechanised assets taking part will be firing live ammunition," the spokesman said.

"We will retaliate thoroughly if the North commits another provocative act like the shelling of Yeonpyeong," First Armoured Battalion commander Choo Eun-sik told Yonhap news agency.

"Through this exercise [at Pocheon], we will demonstrate our solid military preparedness," he said.

The BBC's Kevin Kim in Seoul says this is the largest winter live-fire exercise ever conducted on land here.

Separately, a "routine" four-day naval firing exercise has begun off the east coast of South Korea, involving six warships and helicopters.

The North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong shocked South Koreans.

It sparked the replacement of the country's defence minister and the development of a more active defence and deterrence policy among South Korean planners.

South Korea and the US - with which it has a long military relationship - had already been conducting large-scale military exercises, following the apparent torpedoing of a South Korean warship by the North on 26 March, which killed 46 south Korean sailors.

The pace of military drills has been stepped up in recent weeks, despite frequent denunciations from North Korea and its closest ally China.

Richardson visit

Efforts to redirect the Korean issue back to the negotiating table have been unsuccessful.

 

South Korea now patrols Yeonpyeong Island since it was shelled by the North in November

China and the North say it is time to return to the six-nation talks about North Korea's nuclear programmes.

But the US, South Korea and Japan have said they will not return to such talks, which have previously involved rewards for the North if it cuts back on nuclear development.

After a visit to North Korea, the US politician, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, said North Korea agreed to let international monitors back into the country to inspect its nuclear sites.

China has also urged the North to invite staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency but there has been no word from the North on the subject.

"The six-party talks will be restarted again when the North Koreans display a willingness to change their behaviour," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

North Korea walked out of the six-party talks in April 2009 and expelled UN nuclear inspectors from the country.

N.Europe airports paralysed due to heavy snow[ 1935 ]

Europe airports battle snow backlog

 

Trains have taken the strain as stranded air passengers opted to travel overland instead

( BBC )  22 December 2010 Last updated at 05:10 GMT

European airports are struggling to help thousands of passengers stranded after severe wintry weather paralysed parts of Europe's transport network.

Freezing temperatures, snow and ice has grounded flights, trapping travellers returning home for Christmas.

Airport operators defended their handling of the crisis amid criticism from the European Commission.

Officials at the worst-affected airport, London's Heathrow, rebuffed offers to bring in the UK Army to help.

Since Saturday, when 12.7cm (five inches) of snow fell in just one hour, Heathrow airport - the world's busiest - has cancelled hundreds of flights.

The airport said it planned to operate two-thirds of its scheduled flights on Wednesday.

Delays at Heathrow also had a knock-on effect on other northern European airports.

In Ireland, the Dublin Airport Authority said the airport would be closed until at least 0800GMT on Wednesday, the The Irish Times reports.

'Unacceptable disruption'

Tents have been erected at Heathrow airport to accommodate waiting passengers

In Germany, Frankfurt airport cancelled 550 of almost 1,300 flights on Tuesday because of the bad weather. 

Air France said that some 5,000 people spent the night at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday - 4,000 of whom were trying to fly into London, according to Le Monde.

While in Sweden, Scandinavian airline SAS said flights to London's Heathrow were the most problematic.

"It is the absolute worst there," SAS spokeswoman Elisabeth Manzi told The Local.

"From Frankfurt and Paris, things are running smoothly and we are getting passengers out. In London, we currently have about 5,000 to 6,000 SAS customers."

Many passengers sought to travel by rail instead of plane, causing Eurostar to recommend that passengers trying to leave from London should cancel their tickets and stay at home.

But rail expert Christian Wolmar said the real problem was not bad weather but bad management.

"Eurostar ought to be ashamed of themselves," he told Associated Press.

"It would seem possible to put on extra trains, but they can't get the crews or they can't get the trains in place. It's inexplicable."

The European Commission said it was "extremely concerned" about the level of disruption caused by the severe snow, saying that it was "unacceptable and [...] should not happen again".

But Airports Council International (ACI), the professional association of European airport operators, said 88% of flights to and from European airports had been operating.

It said airports in northern Europe found it easier to cope with severe weather because the temperatures there remained largely below freezing, so the condition of the runways did not change, whereas the fluctuating temperatures in western Europe had caused problems.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "frustrated" it was taking so long to get Heathrow fully operational again.

"If it's understandable that Heathrow had to close briefly, I'm frustrated on behalf of all those affected that it's taking so long for the situation to improve."

Inside the terminal, passengers who had spent several days waiting to catch their flights home were equally angered. Some were being accommodated in tents on the edge of the terminal.

"It's not even snowing!" 19-year-old Candie Sparks, who was trying to get back to Santa Fe, New Mexico, told AP. "It's crazy."

Japan,bamboo wheelchairs at airports [ 1934 ]

JAL to introduce bamboo wheelchairs at airports for easier use through metal detectors

Former baseball player Norihiro Akahoshi tries
a bamboo wheelchair at Haneda Airport\, 

(Mainichi Dec 21,2010)

(Mainichi Japan) December 21, 2010

Japan Airlines is set to introduce bamboo wheelchairs at two domestic airports next year, making it easier for wheelchair passengers to pass through metal detectors, the company has announced.

The new bamboo wheelchair has been developed jointly by the air carrier, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and custom-made furniture maker Sun-so-ing based in the Oita Prefectural town of Hiji.

While a conventional wheelchair sets off metal detectors, requiring wheelchair users to go through a lengthy security screening, the bamboo wheelchair is completely metal-free, with its wheels, axle, brakes and all other parts being made of non-metal materials.

Furthermore, the hand rims are also made of bamboo, while the material's flexibility has been used to enhance the strength of the wheelchair's footrest and overall framework.

It took nearly four years for the developers to complete the metal-free wheelchair.

As it usually takes a month to make each bamboo wheelchair by hand, producing large volumes of the device is difficult.

Each wheelchair costs as much as 600,000 yen and former Hanshin Tigers player Norihiro Akahoshi and his charity organization have volunteered to support the project.

JAL will introduce one bamboo wheelchair at Oita Airport in January next year and two others at Tokyo's Haneda Airport the following month on a trial basis.

Click here for the original Japanese story

(Mainichi Japan) December 21, 2010

Νuclear inspection....?_...[ 1933 ]

China urges North Korea to accept nuclear inspectors

1 / 39

Armed North Korean soldiers stand guard on the banks of Yalu River near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, December 21, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

By Wee Sui-lee and Sylvia Westall

 

BEIJING/SEOUL | Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:57am EST

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) - China on Tuesday urged North Korea to follow through on its offer to allow U.N. nuclear monitors into the country as a way to alleviate international tensions during a standoff with the South.

China, North Korea's only major ally, has continually urged dialogue to resolve the crisis and has been reluctant to blame its neighbor for the shelling of a South Korean island last month, in which two Marines and two civilians were killed.

South Korea held further live-fire drills on the island on Monday, raising fears of all-out war, but the North did not retaliate. Instead, it offered to accept nuclear inspectors it has kicked out of the country before.

"North Korea has the right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, but also at the same time must allow IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors in," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in Beijing.

"All parties should realize that artillery fire and military force cannot solve the issues on the peninsula, and dialogue and cooperation are the only correct approaches."

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said on his return from a visit to Pyongyang, where he acted as an unofficial envoy, that North Korea had promised to allow in inspectors to make sure it is not processing highly enriched uranium.

He told reporters North Korea had shown a "pragmatic attitude" in his unofficial talks.

"The specifics are that they will allow IAEA personnel to go to Yongbyon to ensure that they are not processing highly enriched uranium, that they are proceeding with peaceful purposes," Richardson said in Beijing, referring to the North's main nuclear site.

But analysts said it was unclear how much access IAEA inspectors would really get because North Korea has limited their oversight in the past. They also said the major worry was whether there were other nuclear sites hidden outside of Yongbyon.

"The question that remains is whether this is the only facility. A uranium enrichment programme is much easier to hide than a plutonium one," said Andrei Lankov at Kookmin University in Seoul.

South Korea and the United States suspect North Korea has more sites geared to enriching uranium outside Yongbyon, the complex which is at the heart of the North's plutonium weapons programme.

It consists of a five-megawatt reactor, whose construction began in 1980, a fuel fabrication facility and a plutonium reprocessing plant, where weapons-grade material is extracted from spent fuel rods.

Lankov said the North's suggestion of compromise after provocation was a "usual tactic" of the impoverished state that had worked in the past to win aid.

"They create a crisis, they show that they are dangerous and drive tensions high," he said. "Then they show they could make some concessions."

If IAEA inspectors were allowed to carry out such monitoring, it could help to address a key concern about North Korea's uranium enrichment work because highly-enriched material can be used in atomic weapons.