A problem up at the space station!

Gentle People: 

 One of my favourite places off this Earth is the Space Station. 

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April 28, 2015

15-076

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Russian Resupply Ship Experiencing Difficulties; International Space Station, Crew are Fine

The six crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) are safe and continuing regular operations with sufficient supplies as Russian flight controllers plan for another attempt to communicate with a cargo resupply spacecraft bound for the station. The next attempt to link with the spacecraft comes at 8:50 p.m. EDT Tuesday.

The ISS Progress 59 cargo spacecraft launched successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 3:09 a.m. (1:09 p.m. in Kazakhstan) Tuesday on a Soyuz rocket bound for the space station. Right after it separated from the Soyuz booster’s third stage, an unspecified problem prevented Russian flight controllers from determining whether navigational antennas had deployed and whether fuel system manifolds had pressurized as planned.

When flight controllers initially could not confirm deployment of the antennas in the minutes following its launch, they selected the backup rendezvous plan of two days and 34 orbits instead of the planned four-orbit, six-hour rendezvous.

During the spacecraft’s first four Earth orbits, the Russian flight control team made several unsuccessful attempts to confirm the status of the spacecraft’s systems but were unable to receive telemetry from some spacecraft systems. As a result, ISS flight controllers informed the crew a docking attempt to the station has been postponed.

The spacecraft was not carrying any supplies critical for the United States Operating Segment (USOS) of the station. Both the Russian and USOS segments of the station continue to operate normally and are adequately supplied well beyond the next planned resupply flight. The next mission scheduled to deliver cargo to the station is the seventh SpaceX commercial resupply services mission targeted for launch no earlier than June 19. It will carry about 5,000 pounds of science investigations and supplies.

The cargo of Progress 59 includes more than three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the space station crew, including 1,940 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water, and 3,128 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiment hardware. Among the U.S. supplies on board are spare parts for the station’s environmental control and life support system, backup spacewalk hardware, and crew clothing, all of which are replaceable.

As teams continue to monitor the spacecraft, additional updates and more information about the International Space Station will be available online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

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Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov

Dan Huot
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
daniel.g.huot@nasa.gov

Last Updated: April 29, 2015

Editor: Karen Northon

Tags:  International Space Station

Earthquake victims in Nepal need our help!They need food and water desperately!

The earthquake victims in Nepal India need our help! Please send food and water to any and all non profit foundations working actively to provide disaster relief! A disaster relief package should include a medical kit and several bottles of water as well as canned goods. Any water proof jackets will be of  help as Monsoon rains are expected within a few weeks. Thanks for caring and sharing!
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Support Nepal Earthquake Emergency

With UNICEF already providing much needed supplies, your gift will go directly to where it is needed. DONATE NOW and your gift will TRIPLE IN IMPACT thanks to the Government of Canada* and UNICEF corporate sponsors**.

Your gift will help UNICEF respond to the needs of children and families affected by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that has struck the area in and around the capital city of Kathmandu in Nepal. The earthquake has toppled buildings and destroyed roads and infrastructure. UNICEF is on the ground and responding to the needs of the affected children and families.

UNICEF has saved more children’s lives than any other humanitarian organization. We work tirelessly to help children and their families, doing whatever it takes to ensure children survive. We provide children with healthcare and immunization, clean water, nutrition and food security, education, emergency relief, and more.

You can trust that UNICEF is on the ground and knows what to do. We have been in Nepal for 50 years and our expertise will help save lives.

*Every dollar donated to UNICEF Canada by individuals (up to $100,000) from April 25 to May 25, will be matched by the Government of Canada.
**UNICEF’s generous corporate supporters will be matching all donations for the Nepal Earthquake up to $80,000.

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Ban The Micro-beads.

Stiv Wilson (info@storyofstuff.org)

 

 

4/22/15

 

 Newsletters

To: Joseph Raglione

It only takes two seconds to make a difference!  ACT NOW! Dear Joseph, Small plastic is a big problem. Across the world, the issue of polluting plastic microbeads is gaining attention and we need your help to ban the bead. These tiny plastic beads, employed as exfoliants in personal care products, like body wash, cosmetics, and toothpaste, are designed to go down the drain, escape wastewater treatment and are found in lakes, rivers, and the ocean in incomprehensible quantities. We are literally plasticizing our planet! Take action now and send a letter to your elected officials to ban plastic microbeads. A very conservative estimate of how prolific the problem is suggests that in North America alone, we’re discharging about 700,000 pounds (380,000 kilos) of plastic microbeads the size of a grain of sand every year! Resembling fish eggs, animals ingest these plastics that act like sponges for concentrating toxins in the waste water stream. Beyond absorbing toxins, plastic microbeads also leach their toxic ‘trade secret’ additives into the environment. After an animal ingests these poison pills, those toxins can transfer to their tissue and make it all the way to your plate through the fish you eat! The microbeads that don’t get discharged in wastewater get stuck in the solids waste from wastewater treatment which is often used as fertilizer and spread on our farm fields. Let’s put a stop to this toxic fish food! The Story of Stuff Project is calling on our Community to work together to ban products that use plastic microbeads and we’re leading the charge to get corporations to stop this practice. In the United States, we’re working in several key states and at the federal level to pass good legislation to stop pollution from plastic microbeads at the source. But industry is trying to pull a ‘bait and switch’ and supporting legislation that sounds good, but leaves a loophole for these plastic microbeads to be replaced with more plastic. Soon, this same bad legislation will be introduced in Canada, Australia and Europe, too. We want to make sure we adopt responsible legislation and tell our elected officials loud and clear that we don’t want plastic on our face, in our teeth, on our lips, or in our sushi. It’s not just bad for the environment, it’s gross. Send a letter to your elected officials supporting a good policy that doesn’t swap out plastic for plastic. If there isn’t legislation where you live, you can sign a petition to tell manufacturers to stop their polluting practice. Take a minute to make a difference today and let’s secure a victory for clean water and a world with less plastic. Be the “U” in Community and let’s win this! Thank You! Stiv J. Wilson Campaigns Director (and lead plastic microbead fighter) The Story of Stuff Project

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California is running dry. Serious drought continues.

Nestlé

Kaytee Riek, SumOfUs.org

4/19/15

 Newsletters

To: Joseph Raglione

NASA just gave California a dire warning: it only has one year’s worth of water left. Meanwhile, Nestlé is bottling huge amounts of water from the parched desert to sell for profit. Tell Nestlé to stop selling water from drought-stricken regions. Joseph, California will run out of water very soon. According to NASA’s new report, California only has enough water to get it through the next year. People are under strict water-saving measures; farmers are struggling to keep their crops alive. Yet, Nestlé is bottling water from at least ten natural springs throughout California, including from some of the most drought-stricken areas of the state, and selling it for profit. In places like Sacramento, it’s paying less than $0.14 per gallon. This is bananas. We can stop this. Nestlé’s already feeling pressure in Canada -- last month, we hit front page news for our campaign to stop the giant corporation from withdrawing Canadians’ groundwater at dirt cheap rates, and political parties in Canada are debating the policy. If we're to stop Nestlé from sucking California dry, we have to keep up the pressure. Tell Nestlé to stop depleting California's precious water resources. As California's water supplies dry up, Nestlé continues to make millions selling bottled water. Nestlé's Sacramento water plant is sucking water at a rate of 50 million gallons of water each year from the city's water reserves, and that's just one of the billion dollar company's five bottling plants in California. And Nestlé isn't even following the rules -- a new investigation shows that Nestlé Water's permit to transport water across the San Bernardino National Forest for bottling expired 27 years ago. The biggest victims of this unprecedented drought are California's food crops and the minimum-wage workers who grow them. More than 80% of the world's almonds and nearly half of the USA's fruits and vegetables come from California. As crops sit withering on the vine and tens of thousands of farm workers lose their livelihoods, it's a travesty that precious water is being bottled and sold for profit instead of feeding our crops.  SumOfUs members have stood up to Nestlé exploiting our natural resources for profits, and the company has heard us loud and clear. After hundreds of thousands of us called on Nestlé to stop exploiting Pakistan's water supply, we took the message straight to the company's annual meeting. And now we are making front pages in Canada. We can stop Nestlé's water-guzzling ways in California, but we need to speak out before the state completely runs out of water.  Sign the petition to Nestlé: stop taking water from drought-stricken areas. Thanks for all you do, Kaytee, Kat, Angus, and the rest of the SumOfUs team ********** More information: Nestlé called out for bottling, selling California water during drought, Reuters, April 2 2015 California only has one year’s worth of its water supply left, NASA scientist warns, Raw Story, March 13 2015 How to make drinkable water out of thin air CLEAN TECHNOLOGY Special to The Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, Apr. 21 2015, 12:28 PM EDT Last updated Tuesday, Apr. 21 2015, 12:28 PM EDT 0 comments   20 7 2 11   AA California is drying up. Its current drought is ringing alarm bells across the state and the country, but it is far from being alone globally in facing water shortages. Developed economies such as California already rely on sophisticated irrigation systems to utilize what sources it has. But what’s needed now are even smarter, 21st-century solutions. One constantly evolving technology is desalination, which is being deployed successfully around the world, even as engineers work toward better systems that will use less energy. Another path to drinkable water Desalination takes undrinkable seawater and removes the salt to provide potable water. It works by pushing salt water at high pressure through a superfine membrane, which blocks salt molecules and lets the water through. Africa’s first desalination plant was built by GE in Algiers, Algeria in 2008. The plant supplies 53 million gallons of freshwater every day, a quarter of the city’s needs.  Netherlands-based Dutch Rainmaker BV has come up with an alternative, and novel, solution to water shortages. The company, with partners in Canada and other countries, has developed a technology that can deliver water out of thin air. Its technology uses wind turbines to conjure up H20, in some cases with no access to any inflowing sources. The company’s air-to-water system, called AW75, is already operating in extreme desert conditions in Kuwait and in the cooler Netherlands. It works without access to the power grid, with minimal operation and maintenance and no waste. “We combine technologies that are already known,” says Piet Oosterling, Rainmaker’s founder and Chief Technology Officer. The system deploys the wind via a turbine, but instead of generating electricity it creates thermal energy to cause condensation. It works because air always contains a certain amount of water, though this varies according to temperatures and humidity. When it’s 20 degrees Celsius and the relative humidity is at 50 per cent, the air contains about seven grams of water per cubic metre of air. If the temperature climbs to 30 at the same humidity, the amount of water doubles. “The air-to-condensation process effectively heats and cools the air to the dew point. It basically creates condensation and makes it rain,” says Michael O’Connor, Rainmaker Worldwide’s Peterborough, Ont.-based CEO. The condensed droplets are collected into a storage compartment. The heart of the air-to-water unit is the device’s wind-fed power unit. Inside the nacelle at the top of the tower there’s a proprietary compressor (heat pump). The system converts wind energy to thermal power, which, in turn, feeds the water production unit attached to the tower. The turbine forces air through a heat exchanger, cooling the air and forming condensation. When the temperature falls below its dew-point, water droplets will form. These are collected in a water storage compartment. The company’s prototypes in Kuwait and the Netherlands each produce an average 7,000 litres per day of water. The unit in Kuwait has managed to produce 8,700 litres a day at temperatures of 28 degrees and 40 per cent relative humidity. The company will not say where else it is testing the technology – there is a French company testing a rival system - but says it has potential in countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia and India. Prototypes of the air-to-water system are installed in both Kuwait and the Netherlands. (DUTCH RAINMAKER) Air-to-water technology is not viable for colder climes, such as remote communities in Canada’s North, some of which have suffered from polluted supplies or have to truck in water via ice roads. For such climates, Oosterling says Rainmaker has another technology that the company calls water-to-water. This unit also uses wind to produce thermal energy, but rather than pull moisture from the air it heats water from existing supplies and sends it through a membrane. It’s different than conventional reverse osmosis (RO) membrane filtration because it only allows water vapour to pass through, by varying the pressure on each side of the membrane. The water-to-water unit can be used to desalinate and to filter brackish water; the first model can produce up to 95,000 litres of water per day, enough for a town of between 1,800 and 4,000 people. Oosterling says he is discovering that producing clean water from the wind may be useful in ways he didn’t anticipate, for example in the mining sector. “It’s something I never envisioned,” he says. But for now, he is focused on trying to serve the needs of the 783 million people who don’t have regular access to clean water (according to the United Nations). “It can be used where the infrastructure is not tremendous,” he says. “It has to be simple and people have to be able to understand it.” To enlarge image click here For more innovation insights, visit www.gereports.ca This content was produced by The Globe and Mail's advertising department, in consultation with GE. The Globe's editorial department was not involved in its creation. MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY Ensuring that the lights never go out means thinking small The secret behind some of Canada’s cleanest tap water An unusual startup with a powerful mission