Live webcam from Mount Wilson The latest on the fire that is threatening Mount Wilson from MSNBC: A wildfire threatening 12,000 homes and a major communications center nearly doubled in size overnight, giving firefighters little time to rest or mourn two colleagues killed on Sunday. The fire had burned 134 square miles of brush and trees in the Angeles National Forest by early Monday, up from 71 square miles on […]
Image from UCLA's webcam on Mount Wilson, 10:48 p.m. PDT
The latest report on the Southern California wildfire from the Associated Press, as of 10:14 p.m. PDT:
The Southern California fire was expected during the night Sunday to reach the top of Mount Wilson, where 22 television stations, many radio stations and cell phone providers have their transmitters, said U.S. Forest Service Capt. Mike Dietrich.
Television stations said if the antennas burn broadcast signals will be affected but satellite and cable transmissions will not be.
Two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs are housed in the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. The complex of buildings is both a historic landmark and a thriving modern center for astronomy.
Richard Branson after his first flight aboard WhiteKnightTwo at the Oshkosh airshow.
The Observer’s Alley Canwath takes a look at an updated edition of Branson, an unauthorized biography of the British billionaire first published nine years ago:
Among the responses to the original version of this book in 2000 there was one that Tom Bower must have particularly relished. It came from Branson himself, who said with a customary flourish: ‘What I have read has offended me on every single level … it is a foul, foul piece of work from the first words to the last – really rotten, nasty stuff.’
India now has the potential to operate space tourism from its soil and it will become a reality soon, said cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma.
U.S.- Russia: joint mission to Mars?
RIA Novosti
Mark Bauman, deputy director of the NASA manned space flight program in Russia, appearing at an aerospace convention in Moscow (August 23-27) announced that a joint U.S.-Russian manned flight to Mars was feasible.
Steve Cook, manager of the Ares rocket program, has resigned to take a job in the privat sector.
ISRO loses radio contact with Chandrayaan-1
The Hindu
In a major blow to India’s maiden mission to the moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) abruptly lost contact with Chandrayaan-1 at 01.30 a.m. on Saturday. This means no command can be given to the spacecraft and no data, including images of the moon’s surface, are being received from it.
NASA PROJECT UPDATE
The stationary firing of the Ares five-segment solid rocket motor known as Development Motor 1, or DM-1, will not occur on Tuesday, Sept. 1. The ATK and NASA investigation team continues to analyze the anomaly that occurred during the Aug. 27 test countdown. A thorough review of the data collected this weekend will be conducted Monday, Aug. 31. After this review we will publish an update to our test schedule.
Richard Branson after getting drenched at Oshkosh. Critics say his claims about being a green entrepreneur are equally all wet.
Sir Richard Branson’s green claims are running on hot air
Fred Pearce’s Greenwash
The Guardian
A cynic would say that his $25m Virgin Earth Challenge prize for a new low-carbon technology is worth the price in free editorial. Equally, Branson’s initiative on biofuels for aircraft, while slightly tarnished by the declining green credentials of biofuels, also grabbed headlines for what does not, as yet, amount to very much…
AP: Bill Richardson Cleared in Fed’s Probe
Associated Press
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former high-ranking members of his administration won’t be criminally charged in a yearlong federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations involving one of the Democratic governor’s large political donors, someone familiar with the case said.
The International Space University session ended with a bang – one that took place about 3,000 miles away on a sandy, alligator infested stretch of swampland in Florida.