Saturday, March 30, 2013

NASA seeks $100 million to capture an asteroid, report says

Rick Sternbach / Keck Institute for Space Studies

An artist's illustration of an asteroid retrieval spacecraft capturing a 500-ton, 7-meter-wide asteroid.

By Tariq Malik
Space.com

NASA's budget request for the 2014 fiscal year may include plans for an ambitious mission to send a robotic probe into deep space, capture an asteroid and haul it back within the reach of astronaut explorers, according to a press report.

The space agency is apparently including a request for $100 million in its 2014 budget request to help fund the audacious asteroid capture mission, an Aviation Week report?said.?

The asteroid- retrieval mission was first proposed last year by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. That study, released last April, revolved around an Asteroid Capture and Return mission?that would snag a 25-foot-wide (7 meters) space rock and place it in high lunar orbit by 2025 ? the deadline set by the Obama administration for NASA's human mission to an asteroid.

Total estimated cost of the asteroid mission: $2.6 billion.

In January, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs told Space.com that the wild idea was one of several concepts being explored as a way to fulfill NASA's manned asteroid mission goal while working within current budget realities. [NASA Craft for Asteroid Missions Revealed (Photos)]

"There are many options ? and many routes ? being discussed on our way to the Red Planet," Jacobs, deputy associate administrator for the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., told Space.com via email at the time. "NASA and the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are giving the study further review to determine its feasibility."

NASA officials said Friday?that they cannot comment on details of the agency's 2014 budget request until the Obama administration unveils the complete federal budget request on April 10.

According to the Aviation Week report?by veteran space writer Frank Morring Jr., NASA will include a request for funding in its 2014 budget request for just such a mission in order to bring a small asteroid within reach of astronauts flying on the agency's Orion deep space capsule. The $100 million in funding would be divided among NASA's human spaceflight, science and space technology divisions, Morring wrote.

Scientists who participated in the Keck study spoke before a National Research Council human spaceflight technical feasibility panel on March 28, describing the target as asteroid as essential "dried mudball" rather than a threatening space rock, Morring wrote.

President Barack Obama announced NASA's asteroid goal in April 2010 during a speech at the space agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. That year, he canceled NASA's moon-oriented Constellation program and called on the space agency to launch a manned mission to an asteroid by 2025, then aim to send astronauts on a Mars-bound mission in the mid-2030s.

The Keck study released last year cited a near-Earth asteroid capture mission as a potential gateway to manned Mars exploration.

"Experience gained via human expeditions to the small returned NEA would transfer directly to follow-on international expeditions beyond the Earth-moon system: to other near-Earth asteroids, (the Mars moons) Phobos and Deimos, Mars and potentially someday to the main asteroid belt," the mission concept team wrote in the study.

Since the Keck study's release, two U.S. companies have announced plans to send private missions to asteroids as space mining ventures. The firms, Planetary Resources Inc. in Seattle? and the new company Deep Space Industries Inc., are currently developing unmanned spacecraft and telescopes to identify ? and ultimately mine ? asteroid targets.?

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him?@tariqjmalik?and?Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom,?Facebook?and?Google+.?Original article on?Space.com.

Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2a23c04e/l/0Lscience0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C290C175187740Enasa0Eseeks0E10A0A0Emillion0Eto0Ecapture0Ean0Easteroid0Ereport0Esays0Dlite/story01.htm

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Google Play movies now available in India and Mexico

Google Play movies now available in India and Mexico

Google Play's book collection opened up in India and Mexico just a few weeks ago, and now Mountain View's movie hoard is available in both countries on the web and through the content's Android app. It's no coincidence that the video service has gone live this week either -- we reckon that Page and Co. would love to see folks pair their new Nexus 7 slates with their favorite flicks. To get your mitts on the application, hit the second source link below.

Update: In another update for Indian readers, Gmail is ready to support six Indic languages in featurephone browsers: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.

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Source: Google Play (Google+), Google Play Movies & TV (Google Play), Gmail

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/27/google-play-movies-mexico-india/

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Obsessed fan who shot player, inspired movie, dies

FILE - In this June 18, 1949 file photo, Ruth Steinhagen, 19, held in the shooting of Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus at a Chicago hotel on June 14, 1949, writes notes for her life history in Cook County Jail in Chicago. At the table she has a photograph of Waitkus taken June 17 in the hospital where he was recovering from a bullet wound. Steinhagen died of natural causes at 83 in late December 2012. Her death is the final chapter in one of the most sensational and bizarre criminal cases in Chicago history that made headlines around the country. She was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud?s novel ?The Natural? and the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this June 18, 1949 file photo, Ruth Steinhagen, 19, held in the shooting of Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus at a Chicago hotel on June 14, 1949, writes notes for her life history in Cook County Jail in Chicago. At the table she has a photograph of Waitkus taken June 17 in the hospital where he was recovering from a bullet wound. Steinhagen died of natural causes at 83 in late December 2012. Her death is the final chapter in one of the most sensational and bizarre criminal cases in Chicago history that made headlines around the country. She was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud?s novel ?The Natural? and the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Feb. 27, 1950 file photo, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus, right, shows scars resulting from an operation following his shooting in Chicago in 1949, to his roommate, outfielder Bill Nicholson, on a beach in Clearwater, Fla. Waitkus was working his way back into condition at the team's spring training camp in Clearwater. Waitkus had been shot by 19-year-old Ruth Steinhagen at a hotel in one of the most sensational and bizarre criminal cases in Chicago history that made headlines around the country. Steinhagen died of natural causes at 83 in late December 2012. She was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud?s novel ?The Natural? and the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford, a mysterious woman who lured a major league ballplayer she'd never met into a hotel room with a cryptic note and shot him. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this June 17, 1949 file photo, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus smiles from his bed in Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago as his father, Stephen, holds up his arm for an attempted wave. Waitkus was shot and seriously wounded June 14 in a Chicago hotel by 19-year-old Ruth Steinhagen. Steinhagen died of natural causes at 83 in late December 2012. Her death is the final chapter in one of the most sensational and bizarre criminal cases in Chicago history that made headlines around the country. She was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud?s novel ?The Natural? and the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Aug. 19, 1949 file photo, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus acknowledges the applause of fans at Shibe Park as he stands by gifts showered on him on "Eddie Waitkus Night" in Philadelphia. Waitkus was in uniform for the first time since he was shot, June 14, 1949, in a Chicago hotel by 19-year-old Ruth Steinhagen. Steinhagen died of natural causes at 83 in late December 2012. Her death is the final chapter in one of the most sensational and bizarre criminal cases in Chicago history that made headlines around the country. She was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud?s novel ?The Natural? and the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this June 16, 1949 file photo, Ruth Steinhagen, 19, is seen at felony court in Chicago where she appeared for her hearing on charges of assault with intent to murder in the shooting of Philadelphia Phillies ball player Eddie Waitkus at a Chicago hotel on June 14, 1949. Steinhagen died of natural causes at 83 in late December 2012. Her death is the final chapter in one of the most sensational and bizarre criminal cases in Chicago history that made headlines around the country. She was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud?s novel ?The Natural? and the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford. (AP Photo/Charles Knoblock, File)

CHICAGO (AP) ? She inspired a novel and a movie starring Robert Redford when in 1949 she lured a major league ballplayer she'd never met into a hotel room with a cryptic note and shot him, nearly killing him.

After the headlines faded, Ruth Ann Steinhagen did something else just as surprising: She disappeared into obscurity, living a quiet life unnoticed in Chicago until now, more than a half century later, when news broke that she had died three months earlier.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Friday that Steinhagen passed away of natural causes on Dec. 29, at the age of 83. First reported by the Chicago Tribune last week, her identity was a surprise even to the morgue employees who knew about the 1984 movie "The Natural," in which she was portrayed by actress Barbara Hershey.

"She chose to live in the shadows and she did a good job of it," John Theodore, an author who wrote a 2002 nonfiction book about the crime, wrote in an email Sunday.

The story, with its elements of obsession, mystery, insanity and a baseball star, made it part of both Chicago's colorful crime history and rich baseball lore.

The story began with what appeared to be just another young woman's crush on Eddie Waitkus, the Chicago Cubs' handsome first baseman. So complete was this crush that the teenager set a place for Waitkus, whom she'd never met, at the family dinner table. She turned her bedroom into a shrine to him, and put his photo under her pillow.

After the 1948 season, Waitkus was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies ? a fateful turn. "When he went to the Phillies, that's when she decided to kill him," Theodore said in an interview.

Steinhagen had her chance the next season, when the Phillies came to Chicago to play the Cubs at Wrigley Field. She checked into a room at the Edgewater Beach Hotel where he was staying and invited him to her room.

"We're not acquainted, but I have something of importance to speak to you about," she wrote in a note to him after a game at Wrigley on June 14, 1949.

It worked. Waitkus arrived at her room. After he sat down, Steinhagen walked to a closet, said, "I have a surprise for you," then turned with the rifle she had hidden there and shot him in the chest. Theodore wrote that she then knelt by his side and held his hand on her lap. She told a psychiatrist afterward about how she had dreamed of killing him and found it strange that she was now "holding him in my arms."

Newspapers devoured and trumpeted the lurid story of a 19-year-old baseball groupie, known in the parlance of the day as a "Baseball Annie." Among the sensational and probably staged photos was one showing Steinhagen writing in her journal at a table in her jail cell with a framed photograph of Waitkus propped nearby.

A judge determined she was insane and committed her to a mental hospital. She was released three years later, after doctors determined she had regained her sanity.

Details about the rest of her life are sketchy. She lived with her sister in a house just a few miles from the hotel where she shot Waitkus. A neighbor told Theodore that Steinhagen said she worked in an office for 35 years but never revealed her employer. And she made an effort to conceal her privacy, often refusing to answer the phone or come to the door when Theodore knocked.

Chris Gentner, a neighbor who used to help the Steinhagen sisters with chores, said he only found out who she was 15 years after they began living nearby.

"I found out through my ex-wife ? I'm not sure how she found out ? and I looked (Steinhagen) up online. And as soon as I saw (her photograph) online I said, 'That's her,'" Gentner said.

The 1984 movie was based on a novel by Bernard Malamud that was inspired by the story. Theodore's 2002 book was entitled "Baseball's Natural: The story of Eddie Waitkus."

Waitkus, who played the season after he was shot, helping the Phillies win the National League pennant, decided not to press charges in 1952 when Steinhagen was deemed sane. The trial would have likely made banner headlines ? particularly since Malamud's novel was released in 1952 ? so Watikus' decision almost certainly assisted Steinhagen's disappearance into obscurity.

He died in 1972, 12 years before Redford portrayed Roy Hobbs, the character inspired by Waitkus.

"He hardly ever talked to his family about Ruth," Theodore said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-17-Obit-Baseball%20Stalker/id-0a93f60e817545c281078d6e578255b7

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