Vasaloppet

This morning at 08:00 started the annual skiing race, called Vasaloppet, with 16,500 skiers. It was -12 F very good weather for skiing. The distance is 90 kilometers and usually takes a little more than 4 hours for the elite, but up to 12 hours the amateur athletics and some interrupt. During the route ski runners are served blueberry soup.
I will follow the Wasaloppet on TV.

On February 10, 1922 said editor Anders Pers a historical article in Vestmanlands County Newspaper. He launched the idea of a Vasaloppet between Salen and Mora. And so it was - the same year!
Anders Pers from Mora is the father of Vasaloppet. It was his thoughts and expressions that made the world's largest skiing competition was born. He wrote about the contemporary interest in ski sports and linking it with Gustav Eriksson Vasa's flight on skis from Mora to Norway 1521. Maybe a Wasalopp.
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Petra Diamonds sold a 507-carat diamond for $35.3 million on Friday

LONDON (Reuters) – Petra Diamonds sold a 507-carat diamond for $35.3 million on Friday, breaking a record as the highest price ever paid for a rough diamond.
Analysts had estimated the value of the stone, one of the 20 biggest high-quality rough diamonds, at around $25 million.
"It is fitting that the Cullinan Heritage should achieve a sale price of $35.3 million, the highest sale price on record ever achieved for a rough diamond, as it has the potential to produce one of the world's most important polished gems," Chief Executive Johan Dippenaar said.
London-listed Petra said in a statement the gem was purchased in a tender by Chow Tai Fook Jewelry Co Ltd in Hong Kong.
Proceeds will help boost Petra's profit for its fiscal year to end-June after the firm swung to a first-half profit on higher production and sales.
AIM-listed Petra found the gem last September at its 74 percent owned Cullinan mine in South Africa, which it bought from sector giant De Beers in 2007.
The Cullinan mine has been the source of many large diamonds, including the world's largest rough diamond -- the Cullinan -- at 3,106 carats. That gem was cut into the Star of Africa stones that are now set in Britain's Crown Jewels.
Petra was a member of a consortium that paid $148 million when buying the Cullinan mine from De Beers, which is 45 percent owned by mining group Anglo American.

(Reporting by Eric Onstad; Editing by David Holmes)

Al Gore can surely find a chilling disaster to preach about

Ulf Nilson Expressen wrote following:
Free translation in English.

Al Gore can surely find a chilling disaster to preach about
The bad news is that the weather is downright sucks. In the short term it will be that the pulsations, shovel and curse the cold. Anyone who so desires may be happy for me to draw any particular rich imprecations against the airheads in the UN's climate panel IPCC, claiming that we are heading for a devastating global warming in which the Himalayan glaciers melt, Holland flooded and our dear old ball more or less uninhabitable. Yes, if not!
Yes, you know what I mean. Then the IPCC report was published, we have witnessed an incitement campaign - surely the most comprehensive in world history, though mostly because communication is so advanced. Scientists, politicians (especially the terrible Al Gore) and, unfortunately, all the world mediepellar have puked up millions of words - no, certainly billion! - About how awful it must be if we do not stop driving, stop burning coal, ending expel carbon dioxide, etc, etc. The basic message, which we often try to hide, is that we must submit ourselves to more rules and regulations, of course, formulated by experts and the noble politicians (as I write this I smile wrong) actually, yes, really want our best. But: The good news is that the bad news is wrong! Gradually, it has been leaked to the IPCC simply cheated, used ridiculously poor sources (including a student essay), and refused to take into account the facts that pointed in the "wrong" direction. And more. The head of the panel, Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian accused, as I understand it rightly, for corruption. In short: a vertigo of cosmic proportions.
But the reality is a noisy beast. And everything suggests that psychosis and mass hysteria will drive forward a positive development. What we call the market is about to take over - simply because there are billions to gain new energy. Around the World, but not least in the U.S. and China are preparing a new generation of nuclear reactors. Fine! In Sweden we should emulate. Wind power is probably an oblique tracks, but little benefit, it will be done and new methods to isolate buildings will reduce heating - and electricity bills! - Huge. Improved car engine is phased in and around the world improve manufacturing machines and processes. All this leads to more and more incisive research - and millions of new jobs! Those who wish may speak of a paradigm shift - radical and disruptive change.
In doing so, we glimpsed the extension and it is perhaps the best news of all, the end of the dictatorship of oil. And hence a drastically reduced influence in the countries that happen to have had the good fortune to sit on the "black gold".
The idea of Russia that need to support themselves in work and entrepreneurship is very attractive (though perhaps not for Putin). Hypocritical Saudi princes may cut down on his disgusting luxury and Iran might - might - be a democracy where even women are counted. The unpleasant Hugo Chávez of Venezuela may begin to strain the talking - to the delight of all sensible Latin Americans - and Al Gore can surely find a new chilling disaster to preach about.
And perhaps best of all. The car, which is a far the freedom machine for us ordinary WARE-SLAVE, still has his best time in front of him ...
Ulf Nilson

Posted on February 23, 2010 Updated February 23, 2010
URL to this page: Link to the Swedish newspaper

Countdown to Launch begins

The countdown for space shuttle Endeavour's Feb. 7 liftoff began on schedule Thursday, Feb. 5 at 2 a.m. EST.
Tune into the STS-130 mission's Ountdown Status Briefing that will air tomorrow at 10 a.m. on NASA TV at www.nasa.gov/ntv.

NASA Shuttle at Launch Pad for Final Scheduled Night Launch

Crew Set to Arrive for Practice Liftoff CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- After reaching its launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida Wednesday, space shuttle Endeavour now awaits its next major milestone for the upcoming STS-130 mission. Reporters are invited to cover the launch dress rehearsal, known as the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT, scheduled to take place at Kennedy from Jan. 19 to 21.
Endeavour arrived at Launch Pad 39A at 8:45 a.m. EST Wednesday on top of a giant crawler-transporter. The crawler-transporter left Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building at 4:13 a.m., traveling less than 1 mph during the 3.4-mile journey. The shuttle was secured on the pad at 10:37 a.m.
With Endeavour on the pad, the STS-130 astronauts and ground crews can participate in the practice countdown and related training starting Jan. 19. The rehearsal provides each shuttle crew with an opportunity to participate in various simulated countdown activities, including equipment familiarization and emergency training.
Source: NASA

Fuel cell-powered airplane Ion Tiger has set a new record with 23 hours and 17 minutes non-stop flight.

Naval Research Laboratory conducted in October, a flight with the plane but was then not get it to stick in the air a full day, there was 43 minutes.
But in November it tried again, and this time it was flying time 23 hours and 17 minutes. The fuel cell in Ion Tiger has a power of 550 W. The electric motor driving planet, resulting in a very quiet ride. According to NRL is the fuel cell four times as efficient as an internal combustion engine and seven times as effective as the equivalent weight of batteries.
The next step in development is to increase the impact of the fuel cell to 1.5 kW and extend flight time to three days. While the fuel cell will supply electricity to the supplied loads, such as reconnaissance cameras.
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STS-129 Launch Countdown Begins Today

At today's launch countdown status briefing held at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managers reported space shuttle Atlantis, its payload and crew are ready for launch at 2:28 p.m. EST on Monday.
NASA Test Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson reported everything is progressing on schedule for Atlantis' 31st flight to deliver the crew, two Express Logistic Carriers and other necessary parts to the International Space Station.
"Our teams here at Kennedy Space Center, as well as all the NASA centers around the country, have worked very hard preparing this hardware for flight," said Blackwell-Thompson. "We're all looking forward to the mission that lies ahead."
Scott Higginbotham, the STS-129 payload manager, said the processing of the payload for this mission has been a difficult and challenging race for his team. "But we're smiling today," Higginbotham said. "Because we crossed the finish line and we survived." Final inspections were completed and the payload bay doors were closed for flight this morning.
Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters reported weather is looking very good for launch day and for the loading of propellants into Atlantis' external fuel tank. At this time there's only a 10 percent chance of weather hindering a successful launch on Monday.
At 1 p.m. today, NASA's official launch countdown clock begins counting backward toward Monday's liftoff.

Source: NASA

Luftskeppet STS-111

STS-111 will be developed into a cheap, flexible aircraft that can be deployed for example, monitoring data on a medium height and medium periods.
Airship is foldable and can be transported in a container to the ascension seat. This is not a rigid construction, but a series of containers connected to each other.
The first is helium gas used to lift the ship. In other containers kept the gas that drives the internal combustion engine, placed at the bottom of the first section.
The advantage of this flexible design is that the whole airship does not need to become a windbreak and is influenced by air currents direction. For the crosswind turns the rear sections and ports in the lee of the front.
Airship was developed by German TAO-Technologies but built by Sans Wire Corp. in Florida. At the end of the year to get the demonstration flights in Europe for the first time.
STS-111 is 35 meters long (111 feet) and 3.5 meters in diameter.
It is considered as a prototype, next year it is envisaged that a double-long airship will be built.
STS-111 will be developed into a cheap, flexible aircraft that can be deployed for example, monitoring data on a medium height and medium periods.
Airship is foldable and can be transported in a container to the ascension seat. This is not a rigid construction, but a series of containers connected to each other.
The first is helium gas used to lift the ship. In other containers kept the gas that drives the internal combustion engine, placed at the bottom of the first section.
The advantage of this flexible design is that the whole airship does not need to become a windbreak and is influenced by air currents direction. For the crosswind turns the rear sections and ports in the lee of the front.
Airship was developed by German TAO-Technologies but built by Sans Wire Corp. in Florida. At the end of the year to get the demonstration flights in Europe for the first time.
STS-111 is 35 meters long (111 feet) and 3.5 meters in diameter.
It is considered as a prototype, next year it is envisaged that a double-long airship will be built.
The point is that the flexible air-ships will be offered as an alternative to the larger airship developed surveillance data at altitudes around 5000 meters. These airships are sensitive to drift and the position needs to be corrected with the energy-guzzling engines. Upon storage in the soil need these ships hangar-sized buildings.

One Week to Launch!

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the work week begins with the installation of new equipment at Launch Pad 39A.
Technicians will install instruments in both the mobile launcher platform's tail service mast and in space shuttle Atlantis' aft section. The equipment will record the sound pressure and vibration at liftoff -- which recently were determined to be stronger than originally thought.
The testing of the "main engine acoustic environment" using microphones and sensors will continue with launch.
Yesterday, workers completed final ordnance installation and connections in the shuttle.
At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the six STS-129 mission astronauts will enter quarantine tonight after a day of administrative duties. They'll be housed in a germ-free environment until they fly to Kennedy on Thursday for Atlantis' launch to the International Space Station.
Liftoff is set for 2:28 p.m. EST Nov. 16 and the countdown to launch begins 1 p.m. EST Friday.

Source: NASA

Space Hotel scheduled to open in 2012

To see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel round the world was 80: the minute is just a few of the experiences of Galactic Suite Space Resort tries to entice people with. Spa in the space environment is another, with weightlessness bath and gosda energy drinks.
Four people at a time will fit in the space hotel, which, if it goes ahead, that travels in orbit around the Earth - at a speed of 30 000 km per hour 450 kilometer into the air. The price includes three nights on board in addition also an eight week training for the space-consuming trip to a tropical island.
The project is far from uncontroversial - critics have turned against both the timetable, which they believe are overly optimistic, as financing. Something that does not worry Xavier Claramunt, CEO of Barcelona-based company Galactic Suite Ltd, which is behind the planned space hotel.
Told Reuters he says that an anonymous billionaire and space enthusiast, has pledged the equivalent 22 billion to the project.

Limbo Trick in the Great Belt Bridge

Passage was over 18 minutes after midnight and the officer in charge of the Authority for traffic on the Great Belt exhaled.
The ship above the water surface is 72 meters while the sails headroom under the bridge is 65 meters. To achieve this, the ship's stack, which operates a telescope so that the height can be reduced to 64.75 meters above sea level.
The shipyard in Turku in Finland have built the 361-meter and 225 000 tonnes of large vessel. From there it sailed on Friday the rate on its home base in Lauderdale, Florida.
The ship's captain William S Wright was a precaution chosen a date for the passage when water levels were lowest during the bridge. He took one more trick and put the drag on all the machines 140 000 horsepower as the ship passed under the bridge in excess of 20 knots. This meant that the hull drove down a couple of inches further into the water.
The spectacular bropassagen became expensive for the owner, the American cruise shipping company Royal Caribbean International. Only telescopic feature of the chimney has cost about fifteen million extra, which may be compared with the eleven billion that the ship has been on the loose.
For the money, the shipping company had a floating paradise with 16 passenger decks for up to 6 300 cruise passengers and 2 165 crew.

The new supercomputer

The new supercomputer named Milky Way and built by China's military universities, National University of Defense Technology. According to Chinese news sources ranked Milky Way as the fourth fastest computer in the world.
Milky Way consists of more than 11 000 microprocessors from Intel and AMD. Supercomputer has cost more than 88 million U.S. dollars to produce.
China has previously said that the country strives to become a world leader in technology.

Ares I-X at the Launch Pad

NASA's Ares I-X rocket is seen on Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Monday, Oct. 26, 2009. The flight test of Ares I-X, scheduled for today, Oct. 27, 2009, will provide NASA with an early opportunity to test and prove flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I.

Country glider called the car that has two features in common with fast train

Nissan today unveiled concept car Country Glider. It is electrically powered and leans in curves, like the fast train.
The Country Glider passenger sits behind the driver. Governance is aircraft-inspired and made with steer-by-wire. The journey should feel like air travel on land, or perhaps as a motorcycle journey in a four-wheeled car.
In curves the car lean up to 17 degrees. Tilt No is governed by sensors that detect the speed and steering angle.
The 3.1 meters long and only 1.1 meters wide, the car driven by electric motors. Lithium-jonbatteriet has capacity for a trip of 100 km between charges. The car shown at the Tokyo Motor Show in late October

Summer Olympics 2016

The countdown has begun - and tonight it is clear.
Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Madrid are fighting to get the Summer Olympics 2016 and has called in a long list of stars to get the games. But the biggest star of all has already finished:
- I ask you: select Chicago, said the U.S. president Barack Obama to the IOC in Copenhagen this morning.

Expedition 21 Lifts Off

The Soyuz TMA-16 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009, carrying Expedition 21 Flight Engineer Jeffrey N. Williams, Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev and Spaceflight Participant Guy Laliberté to the International Space Station.
Photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The world's largest autonomous parachute

Last week released a giant parachute with a cargo of 15 000 kilograms from an airplane, five thousand feet above the ground in Arizona.
According to the American manufacturer Airborne Systems is their new Giga Fly the world's largest autonomous wing parachute. Thus, the rectangular type with air-filled cells that have replaced the old cap screens.
The new screen measuring 65 meters between the wing tips which are slightly smaller than the span of a Boeing 747.
The world's largest autonomous parachute can be loaded with 19 tons and is wide as a jumbo jet. It has now made its premiere and precisionslandade on your own.
Maximum load is 19 tonnes and maximum height it can be released from the 8 000 m above the ground. Then the distance flown to be about 22 miles.
Giga Fly is primarily intended to land military equipment. Then the high altitude are important because manburna missiles only reach aircraft at altitudes below 3 000 feet, writes The Register.
To conduct the parachute to the right place is used GPS receiver that controls two electric motors. The governing since the combined steering and brake lines, which automatically adjusts the display's itinerary.
At the premiere tour took Giga Fly soil with an appropriate speed of three meters per second, 275 meters from the planned landing site, according to a press release.

Radio control airplane up to a height of 2177 meters.

Blue Panther basement measuring approximately 1 m between the wing tips. With 100 watt motor and accumulator of capacity in 2100 milliampere hours, the plane weighs 450g. Then there is also control electronics, gps and pressure gauges on board.
The plane was built by students at Stanford University and the test flight took place on the testing ground Nasa Dryden Flight Research Center in the Mojave Desert. It is not radio controlled, but must clear navigation on their own.
When the plane flies at such high altitudes is a risk of collision with the real airplanes. Would it come off course and lose contact with ground control, it will automatically make an emergency landing.
That was what happened when the students after the 2177 meter record of 11 September in the visibility of reaching 2500 meters. Gusts of wind took the plane off course so that it risked ending up in airspace reserved for the U.S. Air Force.
Emergency landing technique worked, but on landing the plane was damaged and the measured flying height of 2490 meters were not accepted as a record.

Rollout

Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Russian security officers walk along the railroad tracks as the Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is scheduled to launch the crew of Expedition 21 and a spaceflight participant on Sept. 30, 2009.

Water Detected at High Latitudes on the Moon

Image: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS

NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission, took this image of Earth's moon. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.
Small amounts of water were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.
Blue shows the signature of water, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene.