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From Earth to Mars: Farming with “AstroGardening” Robot
“Fresh food is one of the biggest boosts of morale for astronauts. Now they get to watch the strawberry grow, see the it develop, turn from pink to red. There's a psychological benefit through those visual cues. And at the end, you get the prize [to eat].”
- Heather Hava, Ph.D. student in Aerospace Engineering, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, and winner, 2016 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for Robotic Space Garden
Four More Bloodlessly Mutilated Cats South of London
April 18, 2016 South of London, England - Between April 2 to April 9, 2016, four more cats have been found bloodlessly mutilated south of London, England, in Thornton Heath north of Croydon; in Forest Hill northeast of Thornton Heath; in Kingston west of Forest Hill; and further away in Frimley, Surrey southwest of Kingston.
UPDATED: Answer to Slavic Symbols East of Roswell Is 1940s RAAF Bomb Targets
Interstellar Travel with Laser Light Propulsion
“Much as wind pushes a sail, there's a way to be propelled by light or photons.”
- Philip Lubin, Ph.D., Prof. of Physics, Univ. of Calif. - Santa Barbara
April 5, 2016 Santa Barbara, California - In the past 60 years, only one human-made machine from Earth has left our solar system and is now in interstellar space. That was Voyager 1 launched in 1977. Today NASA and Russia are talking about building nuclear thermal propulsion spacecraft to take humans from Earth to Mars in maybe 45 days, much shorter than the nine months to get the rovers to Mars.
Part 2: Three Fukushima Nuclear Cores Are Still Missing, Melted Down Into Ground and Likely Into Groundwater. U. S. Has 23 of the Same Reactor Models — Could It Happen Here?
“Are the Americans any better than the Japanese? No. Our industry is just as much in bed with the regulators as the Japanese were, but we were just lucky and they were unlucky. ”
- Arnie Gundersen, Nuclear Engineer, Fairewinds Nuclear Energy Education, Burlington, VT
April 1, 2016 Burlington, Vermont - The nuclear power reactors at TEPCO's Fukushima facility are General Electric's BWR-1, which stands for Boiling Water Reactor. The BWR-1 represents the design of a large percent of the fission nuclear reactors around the world. All of them depend upon large quantities of cold water to keep the radioactive fuel rods cooled and safe from melt down. If the pumps of that coolant water are in a water region that can be flooded, it is logical that the pumps should be either constructed on higher ground or be engineered to be submersible. Otherwise, water flooding is always going to be a threat.
Part 1: Nuclear Engineer Reports Fukushima Radioactivity Is Spreading Beyond TEPCO Control
“What we found is the wind and the rain and the movement of radioactive dust everywhere is recontaminating areas that TEPCO claims are clean ... and Fukushima fishermen take their contaminated fish and seafood further south to markets that don't know the sources are Fukushima waters.”
- Arnie Gundersen, Nuclear Engineer, Fairewinds Nuclear Energy Education, Burlington, VT
Old Nuclear-Powered Satellites Orbit Earth with Plutonium Onboard. One Crash Could Contaminate Thousands of Square Miles.
“A lot of these satellites were for military purposes, for surveillance, for both the U. S. and Soviet Union. We used plutonium, the most toxic radioactive substance.”
- Karl Grossman, Prof. of Journalism, SUNY-Old Westbury, NY
April 1, 2016 Old Westbury, New York - A report in 2011 by the U.S. National Research Council warned NASA that the amount of orbiting space debris is at a critical level. According to some computer models, the amount of space debris “has reached a tipping point, with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures.” The report called for international regulations to limit debris that is now in the thousands of pieces and figure out a way to get rid of it.
Would Wolves Kill 19 Elk in Wyoming One Night and Not Eat Them?
“This kind of event is very rare. Occasionally you see wolves kill five or six animals, but 19 is very unusual.”
- Mike Jimenez, Northern Rockies Wolf Coordinator, U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Montana
March 26, 2016 Bondurant, Wyoming - The U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service based in Montana along with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department are reporting their speculation that in the McNeel Elk Feedground near Bondurant, Wyoming, a pack of Gray wolves recently attacked 17 elk calves and two adult elk cows in “surplus killings.” That means the wolves killed all nineteen, but did not eat them. Exact date of deaths unknown, but photographs of the relatively fresh-looking elk bodies were taken on March 25, 2016.