Stay tuned for a close encounter of un-like minds regarding how best to deal with the “asteroid meets Earth” threat.

A meeting at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. is slated for June 18 between top agency folks and former Apollo astronaut, Russell “Rusty” Schweickart, the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 9 mission. He and fellow planetary scientist, Clark Chapman, are not too pleased with some of the recommendations in a Congressionally mandated report that NASA coughed up for lawmakers on handling the very real prospect of future space rocks smacking into Earth.

The intent of Chapman and Schweickart is to have that NASA study modified to make it technically correct in several crucial ways. One major point of contention is use of nuclear blasts to deal with threatening objects that have Earth in their cross-hairs.

Meanwhile, NASA has already recanted a bit, releasing the previously censored report and agreeing to acknowledge certain errors - which appear as errata in the now-posted report that can be found at:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/FOIA/NEO_Analysis_Doc.pdf

Schweickart made it clear he’s not happy with all that’s in the NASA report, speaking his mind at the recent National Space Society’s annual bash in Dallas.

In case you missed that story, check out:

http://www.space.com/adastra/070527_isdc_asteroids.html

Asteroid guru, Chapman told me: “We’re hopeful that we can reach an understanding on some fundamental technical issues about how to characterize and deflect a threatening near-Earth asteroid. Then NASA can lay before Congress a wholly sound plan and associated budgetary estimate so that Congress can appropriate the rather modest new funds that would be necessary to address the asteroid hazard.”

Take it from sci-fi writer, Robert Heinlein: “Have Space Suit - Will Travel”

A newly formed space group, Orbital Outfitters, is taking that axiom to new heights.

Rick Tumlinson is founder and chief executive officer of Orbital Outfitters, eyeing the design of new space suits that are cool, functional, and right out of science fiction.

The space firm is hard at work on space suit offerings that are more like “tuxedo rentals combined with airbags,” Tumlinson said May 25 at the National Space Society’s 26th annual International Space Development Conference being held here in Dallas, Texas.

His team includes Chris Gilman, well-known for his Hollywood special effects work that has caught our collective attention in numbers of science fiction films.

Now being produced is Suborbital Space Suit 1 that crews of suborbital spaceships, and eventually future passengers, can lease for launch. “We are here to make money…and make space safer, while making space more exciting and more cool,” Tumlinson reported.

Tumlinson also envisions his firm’s new space suit designs are ideal for those extremeophiles among us hungering to base jump from the edge of space - creating a new sport of space diving in the process.

The group is talking with the private rocket firm, Armadillo Aerospace, to have a craft take a person outfitted in their suit up to 120,000 feet altitude for a jump. 

“What we’re about is making space as safe as possible. We’re also trying to make space as exciting as possible,” Tumlinson reported. “We have our first customer. We have our investment. We need a little bit of money, but not much. The first suit will be delivered, hopefully, around the end of the year or so, something like that,” he said.

For related stories on space diving, check out:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_diving_010608-1.html

or

http://www.space.com/news/060713_big_jump.html

Sir Richard Branson’s barnstorming suborbital spaceliner is coming together on various floors at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California.

Not only is his company, Virgin Galactic, working on passenger space travel, but the group has also been chatting it up with billionaire module mogul, Robert Bigelow, about use of his expanding space modules to create Virgin Galactic orbiting hotels.

So says Alex Tai, Chief Operating Officer for Virgin Galactic, speaking here today at the National Space Society’s 26th annual International Space Development Conference.

Tai had some other tidbits. For one, test flights of the SpaceShipTwo — the passenger carrying ship — will start next year. That test period may well last between 12 and 18 months, Tai said.

If test flights uncover no glitches, the vehicle may be ready for operational flight by late 2009. “Safety is our guiding star,” Tai added, saying that snags could push operational status of the vehicle into mid-2010, if needbe.

“The vehicles are all coming together very well,” Tai noted, spotlighting both the SpaceShipTwo design as well as its carrier/drop aircraft, the huge White Knight 2.

Each flight of the SpaceShipTwo is likely to fly to the edge of space some six passengers and two pilots, Tai added. The first year of suborbital runs are projected to haul some 500 people into space, he said.

By the way, that initial price tag per seat is $200,000. But with more innovation that cost could drop to $100,000, perhaps lower, in later years, Tai suggested.

Here in Arizona, at least in ritzy places like Scottsdale, one of the most common question among wealthy women at lunch is, “Who did yours?” Even wealthier doctors hope their names pop up in these conversations.

But boob jobs (linked to higher rates of suicide, by the way) are already passé.
Nips and tucks (remember when they were done just on faces?) are moving down. The number of “labial reduction” surgeries in Britain has doubled in the past five years to 800, influenced, according to an article in the British Medical Journal today, by ads for the service as well as idealized images in porn.
“More and more women are said to be troubled by the shape, size or proportions of their vulvas”, wrote Lih Mei Liao and Sarah Creighton from London’s UCL Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women’s Health, according to this article.

If you’re initial reaction is “you’ve got to be kidding” or “yuk” or “why?” or some such, then get ready for the obvious reminder: Men pioneered the effort to fiddle down there, spending small fortunes on questionable creams, incredible contraptions and even dicey surgery in a rapidly growing trend that apparently grows small fortunes for Internet hucksters but sadly enhances little else.

The 60-year-old who had twins this week told the world today she’s a sign of things to come.

“People need to get ready for what’s coming up in our society,” said Frieda Birnbaum. “There are a lot of middle-aged women [having babies] — 40s, 50s, now I just turned 60. That’s going to be acceptable. They have to just keep up with what’s going on with society.”

I have no problem with that. Nor do I want to do it. My wife and I have three kids, which makes us wonder if we’ll survive to 60.

Still, Birnbaum has indeed delivered a sign of things to come. As medical technology advances, (along with smart thinking about diet and exercise) getting old for many people is less about putting their teeth into a glass at night and more about planning workout routines for the next day. We’re not just living longer (actually, we’re not really living that much longer) but we’re living healthier later into life. At least that’s the promise. Once our kids are all gone, I’ll be nearly as old as Birnbaum, and I’ll let you know if the promise is fulfilled. And you can be darn sure there won’t be a fourth!

Look for space entrepreneur, Jim Benson, to announce a fresh approach in the design of the “Dream Chaser” space tourism vehicle. The new suborbital design will be based on a melding of the NASA and Air Force X-2, X-15, and T-38 vehicles - rather than using the orbital NASA HL-20 lifting body craft.

A five month-long study by SpaceDev and Benson Space Company has determined that this new design will provide “the first, safest and best astronaut-making spaceflights for the emerging space tourism market.” The announcement is slated to occur during the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference that gets underway this week in Dallas, Texas.

This new design is deemed safer and more aerodynamic. It will also allow Benson Space Company to remain on schedule to make its initial commercial spaceflights in 2009.

The new Dream Chaser spaceship design is lighter and sleeker, Benson will report, resulting in less drag and requiring less propulsion than the earlier design. The vehicle, powered by safe hybrid rocket motors, will launch vertically and glide to a landing at the launch site.

A safer “carefree reentry” after achieving an altitude of at least 65 miles, Benson will report, will subject passengers to minimal G-forces, compared to other designs. It will also have many large, well-placed windows for ideal passenger views of the Earth and space during the suborbital trek.

Every hour, three species go extinct on Earth, be they plants or animals. We lost a couple while I wrote this. And by this time next week, the planet will be down 500 more.

That’s the latest estimate today in a Reuters story, which cites global warming, clearing of forests and other human activities as blameworthy. A great headline, for sure. And a frightening first few paragraphs. But, let’s back up a bit.
I mentioned yesterday that polar bears might be threatened by climate change. Today we reported that whales and dolphins might not fare well. And recently we summarized Earth’s not-so-rosy future based on changes that might occur. The science is generally as solid as we can hope in many of these sorts of predictions, but it’s important to remember that they are just predictions. And there seem to be more of them every day.
Prognostication, speculation and even guesstimation has become standard fare for “future of the environment” stories. And while much of the speculation is well grounded in data, observations and compelling computer modeling, today’s Reuters story is noteworthy because it talks about things that are happening, as opposed to things that might happen.

“Biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.

HOWEVER—and this is a big however—there are no good data or facts to back the “3 per hour” figure. In fact, only 784 species are officially recorded as having gone extinct since the year 1500. That’s only 284 more than the are supposed to disappear in the next week! The frightening estimate of 3 per hour (which can mysteriously multiply out to anywhere from 18,000 to 55,000 per year depending on who is doing the math) is based on assumptions of habitat loss and the species that might have lived there, including species not yet discovered but presumed to exist based on discovery rates and other techniques.

All great stuff for generating fascinating numbers, but a skeptical reader won’t buy any of it. We’re being asked to believe, and science that depends on belief is, well, I think they call that religion.

If scientists and government officials and Al Gore and the media reps and the journalists want the world’s populace (who have lots on their minds) to pay attention, and even possibly to rally around all these supposedly disappearing creatures, then they need to do a better job of putting names and faces on the dead and dying.

Scientists in recent years have warned that global warming could decimate polar bear populations (January 2005 story). The bears depend on sea ice on which to hunt for seals.

We reported in early April on the latest suggestions that Arctic sea ice might be melting faster than computer models have been predicting. Already in summer, cracks in the ice run uncharacteristically all the way to the North Pole.

The latest warning comes in a new Reuters story which, while not offering much new information, involves views of people in the far North who are close to the situation: “There will be big reductions in numbers if the ice melts,” said Jon Aars, a polar bear expert at the Norwegian Polar Institute.�

Meanwhile, most of the dire predictions are just that so far: predictions. As of 2005, one population of polar bears in Manitoba had declined 17 percent in a decade, from 1,200 to fewer than 1,000. Other populations are said to be robust and even rising. Fact is, there is no good firm count.
There are thought to be somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 of the bears total across the Arctic.
The fears for the polar bears’ demise are fueled by alarming stories that they may already be turning to cannibalism due to warming-induced hunger. The bears also combat industrial pollutants, too, which apparently has caused the genitals of some to shrink.

The search for the UP Aerospace payload container is over. It was recovered today after several searches since its launch last month.

“It has been found, just fine,” explained Eric Knight of UP Aerospace. The payload section carries numbers of experiments, as well as the ashes of over 200 loved ones - including those of “Scotty” of Star Trek fame as well as NASA Mercury astronaut, Gordon Cooper.

The UP Aerospace rocket — the SpaceLoft XL — blasted off from New Mexico’s Spaceport America on April 28th — shooting high into sky and crossed over into space. The rocket and its payload then came down under individual parachutes.

While the rocket stage was found over a week ago, the SpaceLoft XL’s payload section had been lost within rough mountain terrain. Several helicopter searches failed to find the rocket hardware and its precious cargo.

More details are to follow later today, Knight told SPACE.com.

In the UK, fertility clinics have to consider the baby’s need for a father before helping a woman get creatively pregnant. But the draft form of a proposed new law would drop that requirement.

The sweeping legislation would also:

• Ban couples from choosing their child’s gender.
• Allow creation of “Frankenstein” research embryos that mix human and animal cells.
• Tightens the law on screening embryos for diseases.�

See: Freakiest Lab Animals