When my laptop goes kaput, my first instinct is to chuck it out the window, but astronauts in space don’t have such luxuries.

Consider this: Yuri Malenchenko, a veteran cosmonaut and flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, had the unenviable job this week of wrestling with a glitchy computer laptop in the outpost’s Russian segment.

While I can call tech support, my computer programmer brother-in-law, or just pay someone to take it out of my sight until it’s fixed, Yuri and his Expedition 16 crewmates have to keep those space laptops running or the $100 billion station doesn’t work.

“It says software license warning,” Yuri told Mission Control in Korolev, Russia, just outside of Moscow on Wednesday during NASA’s daily hour of live video from the space station.

Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko works with communication equipment on the ISS.

Flight controllers and engineers there were talking Yuri, who has commanded the station in the past, through the steps to reinstall programs from a software DVD. They were speaking Russian, with a handy English translator, but frustration knows no language.

“[It says] the computer cannot copy the file, and data error,” said Yuri, as he and Mission Control hammered through their troubleshooting.

I may not be a spaceman, but I know how it feels to have that blue screen of death standing between me and my files. At least I only have to face off against one computer at a time, but it’s a different story for station astronauts.

According to the folks at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas – home of the U.S. astronaut corps and shuttle/space station Mission Controls – there are no less than 69 laptop computers watching over the International Space Station right this minute. Here’s a breakdown:

• 50 computers govern all NASA core functions on the station, including operations and many of the payloads.
• 5 of those 50 NASA machines are directly linked to the station’s core avionics computers to send commands and receive telemetry
• 12 laptop computers support all of the station’s Russian core functions, operations and payloads
• 7 new laptops watch over the new, European-built Columbus laboratory for the European Space Agency.

And there’s more coming, I’m sure. On March 11, NASA’s shuttle Endeavour will launch with the first segment of Japan’s massive Kibo laboratory – the station’s largest research module – along with a Canadian-built, two-armed robot called Dextre that will be mounted outside. Kibo will likely need its own laptop computers.

Luckily, flight controllers in Russia and the U.S. have extensive – if not altogether desired – experience working through minor and major computer glitches aboard the ISS. Just last summer, the station’s primary Russian command and navigation computers crashed due to a faulty circuit. Cosmonauts jerry rigged a workaround until the computers could be replaced later.

The station’s main U.S. computers inside NASA’s Destiny lab have also experience their own growing pains, including a major crash back in April 2001.

The folks with NASA’s computer resources and architecture department say that space station computers receive new software updates for different applications several times a year to support new requirements, interfaces and new arrivals of modules and other hardware as the orbital laboratory’s construction continues.

Beans give most people uncomfortable flatulence, but some legumes can be real killers.

Seven people were recently hospitalized after being around a suspicious vial of white powder in a Las Vegas motel room, according to an Associated Press (AP) story published today. The man found in the room with the vial even slipped into a coma.

The culprit? FBI officials have fingered the deadly poison ricin, which “… is made from the waste left over from processing castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms, or about the size of the head of a pin, can kill a human” according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the AP author wrote. Terrorism isn’t suspected.

Castor plants grow up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) in height, and are thought to have originated in Africa. Hundreds of millions of tons of the oil from their beans is extracted each year, and is used in everything from food additives, laxatives and pharmaceutical drugs to animal repellant, mold inhibitors and food packaging.

According to the CDC, ricin extracted from the bean’s leathery casing kicks in about 6 to 8 hours after being inhaled or swallowed. Once in the body, the toxin begins to shut down protein-making machinery in the body’s cells, eventually killing them.

If inhaled, severe flu-like symptoms appear in about 8 hours, followed by bluing of the skin and excess fluid in the lungs. Those unfortunate enough to swallow the compound suffer severe diarrhea, dehydration, low blood pressure, hallucinations, and even seizures.

No antidote yet exists for ricin, and it takes about three to five days to recover naturally — so don’t go sniffing any suspicious white powders around town.

The results from that missile intercept of the out-of-whack USA 193 spysat continues to be assessed by orbital debris experts.

One of those experts is T.S. Kelso of The Center for Space Standards & Innovation in Colorado Springs. He operates CelesTrak that posts info on orbital debris.

Kelso’s “USA 193 Post-Shootdown Analysis” shows that the missile launched from the USS Lake Erie occurred 38.5 seconds after the rogue spacecraft rose above the horizon as seen from the ship.

A plot of debris from USA-193’s destruction. Credit: AGI.

So far, there are 45 pieces of leftover debris from the intercept that are cataloged. A plot for the event shows debris ranging from 104 miles (167 kilometers) altitude at perigee (low point) all the way up to 1,670 miles (2,689 kilometers) at apogee (high point).

Kelso notes that he will be adding an orbital lifetime analysis to assess how long this debris might continue to present an increased risk to satellites in low-Earth orbit.

In a follow-on item, the analysis of the orbital lifetime of the debris is admittedly tough to do, Kelso explains. The original USA 193 spacecraft was some 4.5 meters long and 2.4 meters wide, according to open sources. Given that — and a cylindrical shape — that would give it a volume of 21.4 cubic meters, he figures.

Furthermore, given a reported spacecraft mass of 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms), subtracting the fuel weight of an announced 1,000 pounds - all that equals to a dry mass of about 1,800 kilograms and yields an average density of 85 kg/m3.

Soooooo….taking into account the U.S. Department of Defense view that “no parts larger than a football survived the strike” - that means 11 inches long and 21 inches in circumference, based on the tape measure rolled across a regulation NFL football, Kelso says. Since the U.S. Space Surveillance Network typically cannot track objects smaller than 10 centimeter in size, these spysat fragments should range from 10-20 centimeter in diameter.

Soooooo…(part 2) all this suggests that the last of any 10-centimeter chunks should decay and fall into Earth’s atmosphere 53 days after the intercept; in the 20-centimeter fragment department, the last object decays 105 days after the intercept.

If any of the pieces are larger than reported, they will take progressively longer to decay, Kelso concludes.

A new study of U.S. teens finds many lack knowledge of basic things that some experts say help form the underpinnings of a common culture.

According to an article in USA Today, among 1,200 17-year-olds surveyed:

• 43 percent knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.
• 52 percent could identify the theme of 1984.
• 51 percent knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.

Looking at the glass as half-full, as pundits and journalists seldom do, one might say lots of teens know something about their country’s history. Indeed, 88 percent knew the bombing of Pearl Harbor led our country into World War II. One reason so many knew that: It’s taught in school.

So, let me see if I get this: If we teach teens something, they learn it. If we fail to, then we complain that half of them don’t know it. Sure, teens can be lazy (and fail to do chores, and seem simply to not care). But these poll results are as much a reflection on our education system as on teens.

Legendary aerospace designer, Burt Rutan, is back in high-gear after suffering months with an energy-draining heart ailment.

In a February 22 email message to reporters, Rutan reported that he underwent open-heart surgery earlier this month to take care of the problem: constrictive pericardium.

Following his February 7 operation at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Rutan said that he’s feeling better every day, although complete recovery will take some three more months.

In response to my email query regarding his medical status, Rutan praised the UCLA doctors. “My problem is often missed since it is rare and it is not easily discerned on x-ray, sonogram, angiogram, or even CAT Scan. I owe my life to a real sharp doctor who figured it out,” he told me.

Burt Rutan, space travel technologist. Credit: Virgin Galactic

Cause of Rutan’s medical problem had remained a mystery for five months. Once diagnosed, he underwent open heart surgery two days later.

“My heart is fine…it just now has room to do its pumping. The problem will not reoccur since the bad hardened sack was removed,” Rutan explained.

Rutan said he’s doing great post-surgery, gaining strength each day.

As leader of his Scaled Composites team in Mojave, California, Rutan and his fellow builders are deep in work on building the huge White Knight Two drop plane, as well as SpaceShipTwo, the customer-carrying suborbital spaceliner for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

“It is great to have Burt back beginning to fire on all cylinders again after what has been a very tough period for the whole Scaled family…and a very worrying time for all of Burt’s own family as well,” added Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic.

“As was evident in New York, when we launched the final design of White Knight and SpaceShipTwo, Burt has a great engineering team at Scaled Composites…but they have missed his personal touch and good humor on the shop floor on a day to day basis recently,” Whitehorn told me. “The knowledge that he is on the mend is another great start to the “Year of the Spaceship” in Mojave where work is on track to commence flight testing of White Knight Two this summer,” he said.

Officials at the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) report progress in blueprinting the design of the first “purpose built” commercial spaceport. The $198 million project is sketched out to cover an 18,000 acre footprint 45 miles north of Las Cruces and 30 miles east of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

That area is favored due to low population density, uncongested airspace, as well as high elevation.

According to the NMSA in a February 18 statement, a milestone has been met in that 90 percent of the site layout and design is now complete. That being the case, the first bid package for construction is to be ready within the coming months.

NMSA is working closely with DMJM Aviation, the group contracted to plan, design, and provide construction management.

Furthermore, water and power distribution, as well as internal road design is roughly 85 percent complete. The spaceport’s runway and related airfield design is 65 percent complete. All design related to the inland spaceport’s on-site infrastructure should be wrapped up by May, the NMSA reports.

Bid packages for construction work are now targeted for summer, although a key milestone must be in alignment with the release of bid packages. An environmental impact study is still underway for planting the spaceport complex, work that must be done to achieve a site operator’s license from the Federal Aviation Administration.

For more details on this, go here.

Completion of Spaceport America is currently planned for some time in the year 2010, the NMSA now projects.

When up and running, that sprawling facility is to be home base for Virgin Galactic spaceline operations. Backed by Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire adventurer, the plan is to begin utilizing the WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo to fly passengers from the site on suborbital jaunts.

BTW: Burt Rutan, master builder of the SpaceShipTwo system at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California, reported today that he’s swinging back into good health. Rutan has been suffering for months with a heart ailment that zapped his energy. Earlier this month he had open heart surgery and is picking up steam again, noting that he is feeling better each day.

The U.S. Navy might try to shoot down a wayward satellite Wednesday night.

The spy satellite will fall to earth if not shot down. By breaking it into pieces, the Navy could ensure that the bits burn up on re-entry.

CNN reported earlier today: “The U.S. government issued a formal notice warning ships and planes to stay clear of a large area of the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii.” That does not mean there satellite-shooting is definitely on, as this Space News story notes. But it seems likely.

The shoot-down, if it occurs, could come around 9:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. That’s after the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to land, but officials have already said the shuttle would not be endangered by this whole thing.

Watch close, and you might be able to spot the satellite before it’s destroyed.

U.S. President George W. Bush last week approved a Defense Department plan for the shooting the crippled satellite.

Check out Leonard David’s findings about the history of this event. Also, do you know about the only successful satellite kill by an aircraft-launched missile?

A lot of grown-ups are packing up today as the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting shuts down in Boston, but earlier in the six-day conference, the halls also were populated by a hordes of science-minded 4th graders.

Or they might have been 3rd graders, but anyhow, they were definitely about 9 years old and smarter than a lot of folks on Fox’s “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”

The local school kids were here as part of the AAAS’s Public Science Day, and the session I visited was focused on educating some 300 students about spiders.

“Ew,” came the muffled reply from some of the pizza-chomping, juicebox-swilling children as AAAS’s Media Programs Director Bob Hirshon tried to introduce the topic of spiders above the lunchtime din.

But he quickly launched a Spider Trivia contest, and the kids’ competitive curiosity surged.  Test yourself on some of the questions most of the kids aced (they had multiple choice options to choose from, not shown here):

How many named spider species are currently known to scientists? (40,000)

What is the largest known spider species? (the male Goliath bird-eating spider)

Can spiders live underwater? (yes, consider the water spider of central and northern Europe.)

Can spiders live in the Arctic? (true, 70 spider species live in Greenland alone.)

How long do female tarantulas live? (25 or more years)

Is all spider venom harmful to humans (no. Most spider venom is harmless to humans.)

And finally, what was the name of the giant spider in Lord of the Rings? (Shelob)

As humans, we tend to get pretty boastful about our status on this earth. We put people on the moon, we treat and cure diseases, we invent weapons just in case we want to blow each other into oblivion one day. Clearly, it is our enormous brain power that sets us apart from the pack - or is it? Are we that much smarter than other animals?

A program airing tomorrow night on PBS entitled “Ape Genius” explores that notion, offering a challenge to our cranial cockiness. The show investigates all the different ways our ape cousins - Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Orangutans and Bonobos - have demonstrated amazing intelligence, both in the wild and in captivity and, judging by the preview, you should prepare to be humbled. There’s the chimpanzee group just chilling in a pond after a busy day of hunting with homemade spears and the bonobo who can “talk”, among others.

“Ape Genuis” couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Just recently, gorillas were caught doing very human things in the Republic of Congo, a few years after studies confirmed they also use tools. All this from an ape thought to be “less human” than chimpanzees, even. Clearly, there are fewer differences between us and the dwindling ape species of Africa than once thought, but perhaps what is more interesting is that even as we lose ticks in the column of distinctly human traits, we’re still separated from apes by an intelligence gulf miles wide created by just a few tiny dial-turns in our DNA. So what DOES make us human?

All signals are apparently go for the attempted missile smackdown of the errant U.S. spysat and its frozen cargo of nasty-to-be-near hydrazine.

During a Valentine Day Department of Defense media briefing, NASA Administrator, Mike Griffin joined Deputy National Security Advisor James Jeffrey, as well as General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - all there to talk about steps to counter the failed National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft.

It turns out that the NASA chief has some history — not noted at the media briefing — in regards to head-on collisions in space.

Prior to his NASA top job, Griffin held a post at The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory where he was a Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) project engineer for the 1986 Delta 180 experiment. It was the first space intercept of a target during powered flight - codenamed Vector Sum.

That experiment involved two Delta upper stages that were intentionally collided in low Earth orbit, orbital debris expert, Donald Kessler, advised me. The planning of that event was classified at the time, but is listed in the History of On-Orbit Satellite Fragmentations, issued by the NASA Johnson Space Center in July 1998.

Kessler worked with Griffin at that time as part of a safety panel to ensure that the experiment did not cause a hazard to other spacecraft. Griffin, the entire SDIO team, along with NASA, performed a safe experiment, obtaining loads of data in the process, Kessler added.

Griffin is very much aware of what could be done in the slamming of the rogue U.S. spysat, Kessler pointed out. “The on-orbit issues are nearly identical as in 1986 and the NASA orbital debris team has since developed the capability to understand the hazard on the ground,” he added.

“So NASA did have a lot to bring to the table for the spysat case,” Kessler concluded.