Ohio lab tests space propulsion system

SANDUSKY, Ohio (AP) - Scientists working with a synthetic material 100 times thinner than a piece of paper are testing their theory that the sun can power interplanetary spacecraft.

They believe that streams of solar energy particles called photons can push a giant, reflecting sail through space the way wind pushes sailboats across water.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has invested about $30 million in space-sail technology, something that existed solely in science-fiction novels a decade ago. Yet the reflective solar sail could power missions to the sun and beyond within a decade.

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ATK Advanced Space Systems

Cosmos 1

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France bullish on deal to host ITER nuclear reactor

PARIS (AFP) - France was bullish about securing a deal to host a revolutionary nuclear reactor designed to emulate the power of the sun, but arch-rival Japan and EU officials insisted there was still no agreement.

President Jacques Chirac all but declared victory by saying the ITER plant would be sited in Cadarache, southeast France, while a report in Tokyo citing government sources there said Japan had effectively given up on the project.

The ambitious project, budgeted at 10 billion euros (13 billion dollars), is meant to clear the way for a plentiful future supply of clean power as the world moves away from coal, oil and natural gas.

But it has been the subject of fierce international wrangling as Japan and France vie to host the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

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ITER Website

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Q. & A.: A Planetary Problem

Elizabeth Kolbert travelled from Alaska to Greenland, and visited top scientists, to get to the heart of the debate over global warming. In this week’s magazine, she publishes the last of a three-part series on climate change; the first and second parts are here online. Below, she discusses the series with Amy Davidson.

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Bomber Kills Scores at Iraq Police Center (AP)

Oklahoma City Bomber Nichols Says a 3rd Man Took Part in Plot (LA Times)

THE CLIMATE OF MAN—I Disappearing islands, thawing permafrost, melting polar ice. How the earth is changing. by ELIZABETH KOLBERT (The New Yorker)

The Alaskan village of Shishmaref sits on an island known as Sarichef, five miles off the coast of the Seward Peninsula. Sarichef is a small island—no more than a quarter of a mile across and two and a half miles long—and Shishmaref is basically the only thing on it. To the north is the Chukchi Sea, and in every other direction lies the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, which probably ranks as one of the least visited national parks in the country. During the last ice age, the land bridge—exposed by a drop in sea levels of more than three hundred feet—grew to be nearly a thousand miles wide. The preserve occupies that part of it which, after more than ten thousand years of warmth, still remains above water.
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THE CLIMATE OF MAN—II The curse of Akkad. by ELIZABETH KOLBERT (New Yorker)

The world’s first empire was established forty-three hundred years ago, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The details of its founding, by Sargon of Akkad, have come down to us in a form somewhere between history and myth. Sargon—Sharru-kin, in the language of Akkadian—means “true king”; almost certainly, though, he was a usurper. As a baby, Sargon was said to have been discovered, Moses-like, floating in a basket. Later, he became cupbearer to the ruler of Kish, one of ancient Babylonia’s most powerful cities. Sargon dreamed that his master, Ur-Zababa, was about to be drowned by the goddess Inanna in a river of blood. Hearing about the dream, Ur-Zababa decided to have Sargon eliminated. How this plan failed is unknown; no text relating the end of the story has ever been found.
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