Safe Landing For Space Shuttle Endeavour

After a mission that spread over 15 days on NASA’s International Space Station (ISS), space shuttle Endeavour landed safely in California on Sunday.

Although it had been previously scheduled to touch down at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:18 p.m. EST, due to stormy weather Endeavour had to reroute and thus landed at Edwards Air Force Base at 4:25 p.m. EST.

The shuttle’s crew comprising seven astronauts led by commander Christopher Ferguson performed repairs on the ISS and upgraded its living quarters so that it would be capable of hosting a number of six residents instead of three. Consequently, Endeavour delivered to the space station a new bathroom, a kitchenette, an exercise machine, two sleeping quarters, a refrigerator and a recycling system that turns astronauts’ urine and sweat intro drinking water.

Moreover, last Monday, astronauts Stephen Bowen and Robert "Shane" Kimbrough performed Endeavour’s forth and final spacewalk, aimed at unjamming a massive joint that was supposed to render the power-generating solar wings on the space station's right side to face the sun. The faulty joint had resulted in limiting the amount of energy the wings produced, since it prevented them from rotating towards the sun.

Astronauts also fixed and lubricated a similar joint on the ISS’s left solar wings.
Unjamming the joint on the right solar wings had been attempted by astronauts during the third spacewalk, but the lube job was left unfinished at that time, because after lead spacewalker Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper dropped a $100,000 tool kit, the astronauts had to work with only one pair of grease guns.

The Endeavour crew also installed a video camera, a spacewalk handrail and a GPS antenna during the last mission on the ISS this year.
In addition, the space shuttle brought a new resident to the ISS to replace crew member Greg Chamitoff, a 46-year-old aeronautical engineer who spent six months on the ISS.

Sandra Magnus, a 44-year-old expert in material science and engineering, experienced her first flight into the outer space and joined station commander Mike Finke and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov on the space station.

Endeavour left its docking port on the ISS at 9:48 a.m. EST on Friday and two days later, it landed smoothly on the temporary runway at Edwards Air Force Base, since the permanent one was undergoing renovations.

The temporary runway is 12,000 feet long and 200 feet wide, which makes it approximately 3,000 feet shorter and 100 feet narrower than the permanent strip.

The rerouting delayed both reunions between astronauts and their families and the return of Endeavour to its home base. The crew is set to meet with their families Monday afternoon in Houston, while the space shuttle is set to be transported to Florida on a jumbo jet within a week, which will cost $1.8 million.

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sweet chakra
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GPS Navigation Reviews

Garmin released the Nuvi 750 recently and unfortunately, it's not much different than their previous 4.3" GPS navigation unit. However there are still key features that makes the Nuvi 750 one of the best, if not the best on the market.

Let's get a few things straight with this particular unit. Forget about any Bluetooth feature on any portable GPS navigation devices. The current technology and quality of Bluetooth connectivity with GPS units is still very early and very poor. Wait a few more years until wireless communication, especially through Bluetooth comes through.Fortunately, you won't have to spend extra money on this unit since it doesn't feature a Bluetooth interface, saving you frustrations with the technology and almost 200 dollars from a similar, Bluetooth-equipped unit. As always with Nuvi units, the screen is quite clear and crisp, easily visible in any light condition on its 4.3" LCD touchscreen.

It does have text-to-speech technology, allowing it to actually announce every street name instead of just "Turn left in 50 yards". Though this is great technology, keep in mind that most text-to-speech technology is featured in virtually every GPS navigation unit being released the second half of 2008.
Some of the key feature of this unit is the FM transmitter and an audio line output, allowing the unit to put out audio such as directions and alerts through your car's audio system. Another key feature of the unit is its built in MP3 player, audio book, as well as an image viewer. This will allow you to turn your Garmin Nuvi 750 itno a versatile media unit, capable of playing your favorite songs. There is even an MSN Direct expandability option, which will allow you to receive information regarding movie times, weather, and more about your nearest major US city. In addition there is also an option for users to expand the unit to be able to receive traffic.

The Garmin Nuvi 750 does not have XM NavTraffic, but who needs that anyway when you have FM-based traffic receiver. However, let's not forget Garmin's signature "Where Am I?" feature which allows a driver to find the nearest hospitals and other emergency facilities.According to a plethora of user reviews, this unit stands as one of the best in reliability, performance, and ease-of-use. And we would agree with all of them. Test it out for yourself!

by sweet
chakra

Amazing facts of Human Brain

Read out loud the text inside the triangle below.

More than likely you said, "A bird in the bush," and.........

if this IS what YOU said, then you failed to see that the word THE is repeated twice!

Sorry, look again.

Next, let's play with some words.

What do you see?

In black you can read the word GOOD, in white the word EVIL (inside each black letter is a white letter). It's all very physiological too, because it visualizes the concept that good can't exist without evil (or the absence of good is evil).

Now, what do you see?

You may not see it at first, but the white spaces read the word optical, the blue landscape reads the word illusion. Look again! Can you see why this painting is called an optical illusion?

What do you see here?

This one is quite tricky!

The word TEACH reflects as LEARN.

Last one.

What do you see?

You probably read the word ME in brown, but....... when you look through ME you will see YOU!

Do you need to look again?

Test Your Brain

This is really cool. The second one is amazing so please read all the way though.

ALZHEIMERS' EYE TEST

Count every " F " in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH

THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

HOW MANY ?

WRONG, THERE ARE 6 -- no joke.

READ IT AGAIN !

Really, go back and try to find the 6 F's before you scroll down.

The reasoning behind is further down.

The brain cannot process "OF".

Incredible or what? Go back and look again!! Anyone who sees all six the first time is a genius!

Three is normal, four is quite rare.

Send this to your friends.

It will drive them crazy, and keep them occupied for several minutes!

Now Gre8 Brain Stuff . . . From Cambridge University .

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The

phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,

it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

thank u

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sweet chakra

pls post ur comment......

iPods, Chicken Wire and the Future of Memory

It seems that every few months, companies come up with ways to cram more memory into flash drives -- the memory technology that makes things like iPods tick. In a few years, however, flash drive memory development as we know it will hit a brick wall and new techniques will be needed to increase capacity.

Many consumers take it for granted that the next generation of iPod, cell phone or flash drive will contain ever more memory to store music, photos and videos.

That's because scientists and engineers have continually devised ways to shrink the components on flash memory chips to cram more data into small devices.

But eventually -- within a couple of years, perhaps, and almost certainly within a decade -- flash memory will run into fundamental limits on how small its circuitry can be built.

That has led a number of research groups and companies to begin searching for alternatives.

Very Thin, Very Tough

Jim Tour leads one of these groups in Houston. But the Rice University chemist said he and his laboratory didn't set out to tackle the memory problem when they began working with graphene.

A single layer of graphite, which is used in the common pencil, graphene is composed of carbon atoms and looks like tiny chicken wire. In this configuration, it is an exceptionally strong material that efficiently conducts electricity.

While working with graphene in his lab, Tour realized that bits of it could be designed to store a charge, the underlying basis of memory.

As he began testing graphene as a memory device, Tour found that it worked better than silicon-based flash memory in a number of respects: It leaked less current, it generated very little heat and it operated in temperatures from minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly 400 degrees.

'A Long Way to Go'

Its circuitry can also be built at much smaller sizes -- less than 10 nanometers compared with the current 34-nanometer circuitry of the smallest flash memory devices. And perhaps most importantly, graphene memory can be stacked in three dimensions rather than arrayed in two, allowing for considerably more memory to be crammed into a single chip.

Tour said his lab is working with industry to determine if graphene-based memory can be commercialized.

"There's a long way to go, and it will take quite a bit of money to bring this technology along," Tour said. "But it does have some advantages over today's flash memory."

Thank u

by chakra

Amazing - Technology Beyond Your Imagination!

This is from sweet chakra

Amazing technology from Japan . . . . but can you guess what it is?

Look closely and guess what they could be...

Are they pens with cameras?

Any wild guesses? No clue yet?


Ladies and gentlemen... congratulations!
You've just looked into the future... yep that's right!

You've just seen something that will replace your PC in the near future.

Here is how it works:

In the revolution of miniature computers, scientists have made great developments with bluetooth technology...

This is the forthcoming computers you can carry within your pockets.

This "pen sort of instrument" produces both the monitor as well as the keyboard on any flat surfaces from where you can carry out functions you would normally do on your desktop computer.

Can anyone say, "Good-bye laptops!"
Thank u
by
chakra

NASA Set to Launch Kepler Planet Hunter

The weather in Florida looks good for NASA's Kepler spacecraft launch, scheduled for Friday night. Kepler will orbit the sun behind Earth. Its optical equipment will gaze constantly at distant stars in an attempt to spot planets with conditions resembling those on Earth.

NASA will soon be on the lookout for possible Earths in one faraway corner of the galaxy.

A planet-hunting spacecraft, named "Kepler" after the German 17th-century astrophysicist, is scheduled to rocket away from Cape Canaveral, Fla., late Friday night. Excellent launch weather is forecast.

The telescope will spend 3 1/2 years staring at roughly 100,000 stars, measuring their brightness and any winks in the light that might signify orbiting planets.

"We certainly won't find E.T., but we might find E.T.'s home by looking at all of these stars," Bill Boruki, Kepler's principal scientist, said Thursday.

Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for science, said Kepler is not just another science mission.

"It very possibly could tell us that Earths are very, very common, that we have lots of neighbors out there, or it could tell us that Earths are really, really, really rare," Weiler said at a press conference.

"Perhaps we're the only Earth. I think that would be a very bad answer because I, for one, don't want to live in an empty universe where we're the best there is. That's a scary thought to many of us."