MOON SHOT

Moon Shot a series of near-death experiences

Stepping down the ladder on July 21, 1969 to become the second man to walk on the moon, Buzz Aldrin had to remember not to shut his spaceship’s door. Nasa had omitted to put a handle on the outside and, if shut, neither he nor Neil Armstrong — already on the surface — could get back in. They would have died.

Just before, while suiting up in Eagle, the wardrobe-sized lunar excursion module, Aldrin’s backpack had knocked off a plastic switch on the control panel. This controlled the power supply to the craft’s ascent engine. A few minutes before take-off, Aldrin noticed the problem. He was able to operate the switch using a felt-tip pen. Had he not been able to do this, they would have died.

When Eagle separated from Columbia, the moon-orbiting mother ship, a tiny puff of air, unnoticed by anybody, added some unplan­ned acceleration. So, when Armstrong was guiding Eagle down, he noticed they were overshooting the landing site and his ­computer was taking him down into a field of boulders. Manually, he landed with a few seconds of fuel remaining. Had he hit a boulder, they would have died.

They didn’t die, of course, but, my God, they smelt awful. The Apollo 11 capsule in which they returned to earth was, basically, a toilet. When the US Navy frogman opened the door of the floating capsule, he reeled back, overcome by the stench. He nearly died.

YOU VIL OBEY

Melbourne International Film Festival website hacked

The MIFF has been attracting criticism from China over the inclusion of the film Ten Conditions of Love, a documentary about Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

Kadeer lives in Washington in exile from China. China blames Kadeer for the recent riots in the Xinjiang province.

Chinese films have been pulled from the festival in protest over the inclusion of the documentary in the program.

The MIFF website was hacked on the first full day of the festival.
Instead of the usual website, visitors were greeted by a white page with an animated waving chinese flag and multi-coloured text reading:
We like film,but we hate Rebiya Kadeer!
We like peace,and we hate East Turkistan terrorist!
Please apologize to all the Chinese people!
Hacked by oldjun!

GNOME VILIFICATION

Gnomes "have a certain abuse potential", say police prosecutors in Germany.

Hitler-saluting garden gnome in the clear

German prosecutors have decided that displaying a golden garden gnome with its right hand raised in a Hitler salute was not illegal. After a preliminary inquiry over the past week, prosecutors in Nuremberg ruled that the 40cm high gnome, being exhibityed in the Bavarian city's art gallery, was ridiculing the Nazis rather than promoting a return of the Third Reich.

"It is pretty clear that garden gnomes are silly and that they do silly things. In 1942 I would have been shot by the Nazis for this," prosecutors quoted the gnome's creator, artist Ottmar Hoerl, as saying.

Prosecutors said Hitler salutes and Nazi symbols were allowed if they were used clearly to counter national socialist ideology. They said however that gnomes "have a certain abuse potential" and warned anybody tempted to copy Hoerl's work would also find themselves in their cross hairs.

YOU VILL OBEY

Amazon Sued Over Holocaust Denial Books

The American Jewish Committee filed a lawsuit Friday against Amazon-Germany for selling books it says question the Holocaust and "trivialize" the Nazis. The AJC says there are about 50 titles available on Amazon.de that question the Holocaust and promote Nazis.

Deidre Berger

Some, the AJC says, are labelled by German authorities as inappropriate under 18s.

"It is unacceptable that books are for sale on Amazon.de that normally are only available under the counter in far-right extremist shops," said AJC-Berlin director Deidre Berger. "We cannot let the spread of Internet sales erode laws that ban Holocaust denial and incitement to hatred of minorities in Germany."

A spokeswoman for Amazon Germany denied it sold any books that were banned or not suitable for those under 18.
"We think that the best response to questionable literature is not removing them but more discussion," a spokeswoman told AFP.

DON'T SLAM THE DOOR

Buzz Aldrin recalls: closing the hatch door
while on moon could have been fatal

After Neil had been on the surface for about 20 minutes, it was time for me to join him. I arched my back to clear the bulkhead and continued to the edge of the porch to position my feet on the ladder.

I remembered the checklist said: "Do not leave the hatch wide open."

For some reason we never completely figured out, the checklist instructed me to partially close the hatch. My gloved hand on the hatch door, I attempted a touch of humour to ease the tense moment.

"OK, now I want to back up and partially close the hatch," I said, "making sure not to lock it on my way out."

Watching me from the surface, Neil cracked up laughing.

"A particularly good thought," he quipped. With no handle on the outside to unlatch the hatch, it would take only a trace of cabin pressure to make it nearly impossible to open.

GLOWING SPHERE

Massive glowing sphere appears in France

French Police were called by scared residents living in the town of Sarthe. The callers claimed to have seen a huge glowing sphere move through nearby forest and fields.
A police patrol arrived at the scene to see something they will undoubtedly never forget. A huge glowing Sphere hovering over the ground at a height of less than one meter.
The sphere was larger than a car and moved towards the police vehicles. The police drew their guns and were afraid that the UFO might impact their cars. In retrospect they noted there was no evidence of any hostile intent at all.
As the UFO moved towards the cars it interfered with the vehicle electrics and headlights while its own incredibly intense glow further brightened, illuminating the entire area. The object then shot away.
The police later described the object as a silent, smooth sphere of light with no doors, windows or vents.

RED SAUCERS

Russian Navy UFO records say aliens love oceans

The Russian navy has declassified its records of encounters with unidentified objects technologically surpassing anything humanity ever built, reports Svobodnaya Pressa news website.

The records dating back to soviet times were compiled by a special navy group collecting reports of unexplained incidents delivered by submarines and military ships. The group was headed by deputy Navy commander Admiral Nikolay Smirnov (quoted in Time here), and the documents reveal numerous cases of possible UFO encounters, the website says.

One place with frequent UFO encounters is Russia’s Lake Baikal, the deepest fresh water body in the world. Fishermen tell of powerful lights coming from the deep and objects flying up from the water.

In one case in 1982 a group of military divers training at Baikal spotted a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silvery suits. The encounter happened at a depth of 50 meters, and the divers tried to catch the strangers. Three of the seven men died, while four others were severely injured.

“I think about underwater bases and say: why not? Nothing should be discarded,” says former navy officer Vladimir Azhazha. “Skepticism is the easiest way: believe nothing, do nothing. People rarely visit great depths. So it’s very important to analyze what they encounter there.”

40 YEARS ON

Apollo 11 and the UFO

The 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing has renewed interest in the apparant UFO sighting during the Apollo 11 mission.
Although kept a secret by NASA for many years, Buzz Aldrin has unequivocally stated that the astronauts in the spacecraft spotted a UFO flying near them.
Nervous about broadcasting their sighting openly, the astronauts tried to casually ask Mission Control if a piece they had jettisoned earlier was nearby, but NASA confirmed it was not.
Buzz Aldrin explained:“There was something out there, close enough to be observed, and what could it be?
"Now, obviously the three of us weren’t going to blurt out, ‘Hey, Houston, we’ve got something moving alongside of us and we don’t know what it is, you know?’"

So what was it? NASA has never identified or even acknowledged the sighting, despite numerous other UFO sightings by astronauts, including the Apollo 16 photo seen above.
Take a look at the interview below with Aldrin (above)

SPOTLESS SUN

Deep reports a deep Solar Minimum

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

FIRST DROPS

POSSIBLE IMPACT EVENT ON JUPITER

Did something just hit Jupiter?

On July 19th, a black "scar" appeared in Jupiter's clouds similar to the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts of 1994. Veteran Jupiter observer Anthony Wesley photographed the feature from his observatory in Murrumbateman, Australia.

"The jet-black mark is near Jupiter's south pole (south is up in the image)," says Wesley. "I have imagery of that same location from two nights earlier without the impact mark, so this is a very recent event. The material has already begun to spread out in a fan shape on one side, and should be rapidly pulled apart by the fast jetstream winds. I recorded a lot of footage, and will be generating more images and a rotation animation soon."

UPDATE: New NASA Images Indicate Object Hits Jupiter

Scientists have found evidence that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley of Australia, that a new dark "scar" had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, this morning between 3 and 9 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. and noon EDT) scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.


This image shows a large impact shown on the bottom left on Jupiter's south polar region captured on July 20, 2009, by NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Infrared Telescope Facility

REMOTE WARFARE

Drones 'kill dozens' in Pakistan

Three pilotless US drones have fired missiles at militants near Ladha in South Waziristan.
It is the third strike in two days, after 19 reportedly died in attacks earlier on Wednesday and on Tuesday.

Drones are controlled by an operator sitting at a computer screen (in a safe location).

GAIA'S SKIN

Are Planets "Living Super-Organisms"?

Japan's Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world's leading geophysicists, is provoking controversy with his bold hypothesis – a new fascinating theory on the lifecycle of the Earth's crust.

To explain why contintental plates drift on the surface of the Earth's molten mantle, Maruyama argues that continents actually have life cycles.
Old, cold plates on continental fringes sink to “plate graveyards” deep in the Earth’s mantle, and then rise again, creating volcanoes fueled by three-dimensional convection movements deep below the surface.Maruyama is taking the ideas of continental-drift pioneer Alfred Wegener to a new level.

Wegener was a German explorer and meteorologist who believed back in 1912 that the continents roamed about on the surface of the Earth -- an idea that was ridiculed by even his most supportive research colleagues as a "delirious vision" and "the wonderful dream of a great poet."
It wasn't until the 1960s that studies of the ocean floor finally provided irrefutable proof that Wegener had been right after all.

LIONS AND LAMBS

Rat Snake and Hamster Forge a Friendship

A hamster and a snake have developed an unusual bond at a Tokyo zoo.  This is no ordinary snake, it's a rat snake which normally eats any rodent that crosses its path.
It all started when the zoo keeper gave the rat snake the hamster, although hungry it refused to eat the hamster. The pair now share a box. " I have never seen anything like it," a keeper at Mutsugoro Okoku Zoo, in Tokyo, said.

The hamster was offered to Aochan, a rat snake, because it refused to eat frozen mice.  Clearly, the Japanese have a sense of humour as thy named the hamster Gohan, which means meal in Japanese.

HUMAN WRONGS

Natalia Estemirova, murdered.

Russian activist 'found murdered'

A prominent Russian human rights activist, Natalia Estemirova, has been found dead in the North Caucasus.

She was bundled into a van and abducted as she left her home in Chechnya on Wednesday morning, a colleague said.
Her body was later found in neighbouring Ingushetia with two bullet wounds to the head, according to an Ingush interior ministry spokeswoman.

Ms Estemirova had been investigating human rights abuses in Chechnya for the Memorial group. She had worked in the past with the activists Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in 2006, and Stanislav Markelov, who was killed in January this year.