The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Aging International Space Station a space lab of ‘unlimited’ opportunity Posted: 26 Jan 2014 06:40 PM PST Earlier this month, NASA said the life of the $100 billion (RM 333.4 billion) ISS would be extended by four years, or until at least 2024, allowing for more global research and scientific collaboration. John Holdren, a senior White House adviser on science and technology, hailed the space station - mainly built with US money - as "a unique facility that offers enormous scientific and societal benefits. "The Obama administration's decision to extend its life until at least 2024 will allow us to maximize its potential, deliver critical benefits to our nation and the world and maintain American leadership in space," he said. The orbiting outpost, which was launched to fanfare in 1998, has more living space than a six-bedroom house and comes complete with Internet access, a gym, two bathrooms and a 360-degree bay window offering spectacular views of Earth. Its entire structure is made up of various working and sleeping modules, and extends the length of a football field (about 100 metre), making it four times bigger than the Russian space station Mir and about five times as large as the US Skylab. The aging structure requires regular maintenance, which is done by astronauts who don spacesuits and venture outside the lab. One such repair was completed on Christmas Eve when two Americans stepped out to replace a failed ammonia pump that served to cool equipment at the ISS. Julie Robinson, an ISS scientist at NASA, insisted that the space station, which has a mass of 924,739 pounds (420,000 kg) but is near-weightless in space, is worth the trouble and expense. The ISS, which is maintained by a rotating crew of six astronauts and cosmonauts who have hailed from 14 countries, allows scientists to study the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body, she said, while testing new space technologies that will be essential for missions to Mars. "The goal of using the space station is to make discoveries that cannot be made anywhere else... and do research that is really focused on bringing benefits back to Earth by developing knowledge that can directly help bio-medical treatments, make new materials, have better Earth and climate observations," she told AFP. Robinson added that "many of our early research results are making their way into drug development, medical technologies, pathways. We also have Earth-remote sensive instruments that provide unique data about the Earth and its climate and there are a number of new instruments going up in the next two years. "When you put all of that together it's really an extraordinary set of benefits back here on Earth." Robinson noted that a robotic arm used at the space station can save lives during brain surgery. "What was special about this one is the ability of the arm to perform inside an MRI machine so that doctors are able to see the tumour and then use the ability of the robotic arm to be more stable than the human hand," she said. "Those two things together have allowed surgery to be performed on patients who were considered inoperable before." Cheryl Nickerson, a professor of microbiology at Arizona State University, has been involved since 2006 in research that has taken place as part of the space program, for example homing in on the salmonella bacteria that cause food poisoning. "I believe that the discovery potential at microgravity research is enormous and holds potential to provide ground-breaking discoveries in some of the major causes of human morbidity and mortality on Earth," she said. "That stems from the fact that there is no way on Earth that we can study our cells and biological systems respond without the force of gravity affecting it." Robinson described the possibilities at the ISS as "unlimited," and noted that a growing amount of private money was supporting research at the space station. "This is an era of space research that is unlike the past and we are looking at the decades ahead as the time when science can finally pursue these boundaries, explore these frontiers and make these unique discoveries," she said. "I think as we look back, 20 or 30 years from now, we will call this the era of the space station... because of the number of advances and benefits that will come out." – AFP, January 27, 2014. |
| US - Russia tensions flare over Winter Olympics security Posted: 26 Jan 2014 06:18 PM PST Analysts say the former Cold War rivals are unlikely to risk a full-blown confrontation over security in Sochi, the first Olympics held on Russian soil since the US-boycotted 1980 Moscow Games. Nevertheless, some experts say the failure of the United States and Russia to engage fully over a range of issues could ultimately compromise security at the Olympics. Micah Zenko, an expert on national security at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, argued that the "safety and security of everyone attending the Winter Olympics is being put at further unnecessary risk because of the reciprocal distrust between Russia and US counterterrorism and intelligence agencies." The White House has expressed "concern" about an uptick in reported threats by violent extremists relating to the Sochi Games. Security fears have been exacerbated by two suicide bombings in the southern city of Volgograd last month, Russia's deadliest in three years that killed 34 people. Other senior US officials meanwhile have complained that Russia has "not been forthcoming in sharing specific threat information." The US Olympic Committee has advised athletes heading to Sochi to avoid wearing their team uniforms or Team USA logos outside of Olympic venues during the February 7 to 23 multi-sport event to avoid being targeted. According to Temuri Yakobashvili, the former deputy prime minister of Georgia and ex-ambassador to the United States, the American concerns are "are very legitimate." "The US government obviously should be very cautious and should be very concerned because of the anti-American sentiment," said Yakobashvili, an expert with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a public policy think tank. In a video released earlier this month, militants from the Caucasus region threatened to mount attacks on the Olympics, vowing to deliver a "present" to President Vladimir Putin as well as overseas tourists visiting the games. "We have been talking to the Russians about the regional security concerns we have. These are longstanding concerns about the North Caucasus," a senior official in President Barack Obama's administration told journalists Friday. The official acknowledged the administration's "frustration" over a level of intelligence sharing by Russia deemed to be insufficient. "This is a tough issue because it's an issue of intelligence," the official said. "We have good relations, we have good conversations, but we always want to know more. "So what you're hearing is frustration that we don't know everything." Russia countered the criticism through Moscow's ambassador to Washington, insisting the cooperation was satisfactory. "It's good enough," Sergei Kislyak told CNN's "State of the Union" program. "And you need to remember, it's Olympic Games that are being held in Russia. And we have pretty solid capabilities to deal with it on our own. "I don't see any tension. I didn't feel any tension," he added, predicting a "secure, peaceful and successful" Olympics. Nevertheless, Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations said the US and Russia remain locked in a stand-off of mutual distrust. "Russia does not want to provide information that could reveal the sources and methods of how it collects human and signals intelligence, while the United States will not share jamming technology that could defeat radio-signal car bombs, because Russia could share or use that information to develop countermeasures that overcome those jammers," Zenko said. Republican US lawmaker Peter King said the United States was wary of sharing technology with Russia. "I can understand why people in our government would be reluctant to share a very sophisticated piece of technology, which could be used against us in the future," he told ABC television's "This Week." Yakobashvili said he did not expect the US and Russia to "clash" over the issue of security. "I don't think that the United States is trying by any means to confront the Russian federation and its leadership," he said. In fact, Washington has repeatedly offered security assistance to Moscow. Obama and Putin engaged in telephone diplomacy last week, while the Pentagon has said it is ready to deploy air and naval assets, including moving two warships into the Black Sea. Russia has rejected the offers. – AFP, January 27, 2014. |
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