Just found this video of a fire (brush fire?) at the Kennedy Space Centre on the 27th. Sounds like they are having a few problems out there of late----Mark Kelly's (the flight captain) wife being shot, the engineer falling to his death from the 5th floor while preparing for the flight scheduled for Friday 29th (which Obama and his family is apparently attending after not being invited to the royal wedding), lightning striking the same position twice in 60 days. All great fodder for the conspiracy theorists it seems lol. For instance one believes that black dot at the end of the video is a UFO. Well, I guess it could be. 
Anyway, here's the video and then a link to the livestream of the launch site if you're interested.
Livestream: http://nasatweetup.posterous.com/a-livestream-of-the-fire-near-kennedy-space-c
The Endeavour being launched today (29th April) will be carrying the Express Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC-3) and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station. The AMS is an interesting item. With it, the designer, Prof Samuel Ting, hopes that the particles recorded by AMS prove the existence of a parallel universe made up of anti-matter, or particles that are, in electrical charge and magnetic properties, the exact opposite of regular particles. Such a universe has been theorized, but not proven. The discovery of massive amounts of anti-matter could answer fundamental questions about the universe's origin.
"Unless you do the experiments, you don't know who is right," Ting explained.
Ting is also searching for proof of what makes up dark matter, the theoretical material that is thought to make up a large part of the universe. Also, AMS may point out whether all matter in the universe is made up of the same two kinds of quarks that make up all the known matter on Earth.
Designing such an experiment, especially one that works in the harsh and unforgiving environment of space, did not happen quickly and Ting says he was taken aback by how difficult it was.
"I did not realize there is really a big difference between doing an experiment on the ground and doing an experiment in space," he said.
Although new particle accelerators were being built on Earth, Ting said he set out to study cosmic rays in space because, "no matter how large an accelerator you build, you can't compete with space."
For example, cosmic rays produce particle energy almost a hundred million times more powerful than the world's largest particle accelerator is capable of, he said.
Interesting.
Anyway, here's the video and then a link to the livestream of the launch site if you're interested. Livestream: http://nasatweetup.posterous.com/a-livestream-of-the-fire-near-kennedy-space-c
The Endeavour being launched today (29th April) will be carrying the Express Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC-3) and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station. The AMS is an interesting item. With it, the designer, Prof Samuel Ting, hopes that the particles recorded by AMS prove the existence of a parallel universe made up of anti-matter, or particles that are, in electrical charge and magnetic properties, the exact opposite of regular particles. Such a universe has been theorized, but not proven. The discovery of massive amounts of anti-matter could answer fundamental questions about the universe's origin.
"Unless you do the experiments, you don't know who is right," Ting explained.
Ting is also searching for proof of what makes up dark matter, the theoretical material that is thought to make up a large part of the universe. Also, AMS may point out whether all matter in the universe is made up of the same two kinds of quarks that make up all the known matter on Earth.
Designing such an experiment, especially one that works in the harsh and unforgiving environment of space, did not happen quickly and Ting says he was taken aback by how difficult it was.
"I did not realize there is really a big difference between doing an experiment on the ground and doing an experiment in space," he said.
Although new particle accelerators were being built on Earth, Ting said he set out to study cosmic rays in space because, "no matter how large an accelerator you build, you can't compete with space."
For example, cosmic rays produce particle energy almost a hundred million times more powerful than the world's largest particle accelerator is capable of, he said.
Interesting.
