New operating system for space: High-tech tycoons

The tycoons of cyberspace are looking to bankroll America's resurgence in outer space, reviving "Star Trek" dreams that first interested them in science.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen made the latest step Tuesday, unveiling plans for a new commercial spaceship that, instead of blasting off a launch pad, would be carried high into the atmosphere by the widest plane ever built before it fires its rockets.

He joins Silicon Valley powerhouses Elon Musk of PayPal and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. in a new private space race that attempts to fill the gap left when the U.S. government ended the space shuttle program.

Musk, whose Space Exploration Technologies will send its Dragon capsule to dock with the International Space Station in February, will provide the capsule and booster rocket for Allen's venture, which is called Stratolaunch. Bezos is building a rival private spaceship.

Allen is working with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, who collaborated with the tycoon in 2004 to win a $10 million prize for the first flight of a private spaceship that went into space but not orbit.

Allen says his enormous airplane and spaceship system will go to "the next big step: a private orbital space platform business."

The new system is "a radical change" in how people can get to space, and it will "keep America at the forefront of space exploration," Allen said.

Their plane will have a 380-foot wingspan - longer than a football field and wider than the biggest aircraft ever, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.

It will launch a space capsule equipped with a booster rocket, which will send the spacecraft into orbit. This method saves money by not using rocket fuel to get off the ground. The spaceship may hold as many as six people.

"When I was growing up, America's space program was the symbol of aspiration," said Allen, who mentioned his love of science fiction and early human spaceflights. "For me, the fascination with space never ended. I never stopped dreaming what might be possible."

For those attracted to difficult technical challenges, space is the ultimate challenge, Allen said.

"It's also the ultimate adventure. We all grew up devouring science fiction and watching Mercury and Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle. And now we are able to be involved in moving things to the next level," he said, adding that he admires people like Simonyi who have gone into space to experience it.

Allen is not alone in having such dreams, and the money to gamble on making them come true.

Bezos set up the secretive private space company Blue Origin, which has received $3.7 million in NASA start-up funds to develop a rocket to carry astronauts. Its August flight test ended in failure.

"Space was the inspiration that got people into high-tech ... at least individuals in their 40s and 50s," said Peter Diamandis, who created the space prize Allen won earlier and is a high-tech mogul-turned space business leader himself. "Now they're coming full circle."

Diamandis helped found a company that sends tourists to space for at least $25 million a ride, and seven of the eight rides involved high-tech executives living out their space dreams. One is a former Microsoft colleague of Allen's, Charles Simonyi, who paid at least $20 million apiece for two rides into orbit and attended Allen's Tuesday news conference, saying he wouldn't mind a third flight.

"Space has a draw for humanity," not just high-tech billionaires, Simonyi said, but he acknowledged that most people don't have the cash to take that trip.

Space experts welcome the burst of high-tech interest in a technology that 50 years ago spurred the development of computers.

"Space travel the way we used to do it has a `50s and `60s ring to it," said retired George Washington University space policy professor John Logsdon. "These guys have a vision of revitalizing a sector that makes it 21st century."

But Logsdon said the size of the capsule and rocket going to space seemed kind of small to him, only carrying 13,000 pounds. It didn't seem like a game-changer, he said.

Stratolaunch's air-launch method is already used by an older rocket company, Orbital Sciences Corp., to launch satellites. It's also the same method used by the first plane to break the sound barrier more than 50 years ago.

Stratolaunch, to be based in Huntsville, Ala., bills its method of getting to space as "any orbit, any time." Rutan will build the carrier aircraft, which will use six 747 engines. The first unmanned test flight is tentatively scheduled for 2016.

NASA, in a statement, welcomed Allen to the space business, saying his plan "has the potential to make future access to low-Earth orbit more competitive, timely, and less expensive."

Unlike its competitors, Allen's company isn't relying on start-up money from NASA, which is encouraging private companies to take the load of hauling cargo and astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The space agency, which retired the space shuttle fleet earlier this year, plans to leave that more routine work to private companies and concentrate on deep space human exploration of an asteroid, the moon and even Mars.

Allen said his interest comes not just because of the end of the shuttle program or changes in government funding for space, but he does see an incredible opportunity right now for the private sector to move the needle on space travel.

Allen's company is looking at making money from tourists and launching small communications satellites, as well as from NASA and the Defense Department, said former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, a Stratolaunch board member who spoke at a Tuesday news conference.

Just three months ago, Griffin was testifying before Congress that he thought the Obama administration's reliance on private companies for space travel "does not withstand a conventional business case analysis."

This is different because it's private money, with no help or dependence on government dollars, said Griffin, who served under President George W. Bush.

Allen and Rutan collaborated on 2004's SpaceShipOne, which was also launched in the air from a special aircraft in back-to-back flights. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic licensed the technology and is developing SpaceShipTwo to carry tourists to space. But Allen's first efforts were more a hobby, while this would be more a business, Logsdon said.

SpaceShipOne cost $28 million, but this will cost much more, officials said.

Allen left Microsoft Corp. in 1983, and has pursued many varied interests since then. He's the owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team as well as the NBA's Portland Trailblazers. He also founded a Seattle museum that emphasizes science fiction.

Allen said this venture fits with his technology bent.

"I'm a huge fan of anything to push the boundaries of science," Allen said.

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Tiniest babies are growing up healthy despite odds

One is a healthy first-grader, the other an honors college student majoring in psychology. Once the tiniest babies ever born, both girls are thriving, despite long odds when they entered the world weighing less than a pound.

A medical report from the doctor who resuscitated the infants at a suburban Chicago hospital is both a success story and a cautionary tale. These two are the exceptions and their remarkable health years later should not raise false hope: Most babies this small do poorly and many do not survive even with advanced medical care.

"These are such extreme cases," said Dr. Jonathan Muraskas of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. They should not be considered "a benchmark" to mean that doctors should try to save all babies so small, he said.

The report involves Madeline Mann, born in 1989 weighing 9.9 ounces, then the world record; and 7-year-old Rumaisa Rahman, whose 9.2-ounce birth weight remains the world's tiniest. Rumaisa's birth weight was initially reported as 8.6 ounces, but that figure was based on a different conversion scale.

Two other babies born since 1989 weighed less than Madeline, and a German girl was born last year at her same birth weight.

The report was released online Monday in Pediatrics.

It addresses a question that was hotly debated when Madeline was born 22 years ago, remains hot now - and still has no answer: "What is the real age of viability? No one knows," said Dr. Stephen Welty, neonatology chief at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.

Muraskas and the report's co-authors say most newborn specialists consider babies born after 25 weeks of pregnancy to be viable - likely to survive - and so they should receive medical intervention if necessary to breathe. Younger babies are generally in a "gray zone," where intervention isn't always so clear cut, the report suggests.

In Japan, doctors have lowered that threshold - the gestational age - to 22 weeks. Normal pregnancies last about 40 weeks.

Some U.S. doctors will attempt to save babies at 22 weeks, but that is not done routinely, said Dr. Edward Bell, a University of Iowa pediatrics professor.

Bell runs an online registry of the world's tiniest babies, born weighing less than about 14 ounces, or slightly less than 1 pound. Since 1936, 124 have been listed. The registry is compiled from doctors' voluntary reports and so does not represent all survivors.

Bell estimates that about 7,500 U.S. babies are born each year weighing less than 1 pound, and that about 10 percent survive.

Sometimes tiny babies with zero chance of surviving show signs of life at birth, and may be able to breathe for a short time if put in an incubator and hooked up to a breathing machine and intravenous treatments. "But even so, if it's a baby that doesn't have a chance, we don't want to put the baby and the family through the discomfort," Bell said.

Muraskas says his report highlights a sometimes overlooked fact: gestational age is even more critical for survival than size.

Rumaisa and Madeline were both palm-sized, weighing less than a can of soda pop - the average size of an 18-week-old fetus but they were several weeks older than that. Their gestational ages - almost 26 weeks for Rumaisa and almost 27 weeks for Madeline - meant their lungs and other organs were mature enough to make survival possible.

But both required intensive medical intervention. They were delivered by cesarean section more than a month early because their mothers had developed severe pre-eclampsia, dangerously high blood pressure linked with pregnancy. Both babies were hooked up immediately to breathing machines with tubes as slender as a spaghetti strand slipped down their tiny airways.

Rumaisa has a twin who was more than twice as big at birth. Few details about her are included in the report.

Before the births, both mothers were given steroid drugs to speed up growth of the babies' immature lungs. Even so, Rumaisa and Madeline were on breathing machines for about two months, and hospitalized for about four months.

Madeline had mild brain bleeding, common in tiny preemies, but with no lasting effects. Severe cases can cause serious mental disabilities. She and Rumaisa got treatment for an eye condition common in preemies called retinopathy, which in severe cases can cause blindness.

Madeline has asthma and remains petite - 4 foot 8 and about 65 pounds at age 20; Rumaisa at age 5 weighed 33 pounds and was 3 1/2 feet tall, smaller than about 90 percent of kids her age. Current information on the girls' size was not in the report; Madeline is now 22 and a senior at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill.; Rumaisa is 7 and attends first grade in suburban Chicago.

Jim Mann, Madeline's father, said having a baby born so small was "terrifying" at first. But other than asthma, the only lasting effect his daughter has mentioned is having trouble finding age-appropriate clothes because she remains so small, he said.

That she has done so well is a source of pride, and wonder, her dad said.

"I don't know why, we were just extraordinarily lucky," Mann said.

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Emerson Launches Data Center Management Hardware

Emerson Network Power has introduced the Avocent Universal Management Gateway, a product it calls the first data center appliance to enable true real-time, integrated monitoring, access and control across information technology and facilities systems in a data center.

The appliance is an integral part of Emerson’s Trellis data center management platform and acts as the real-time data processing hardware link between a data center’s management software and IT and facilities systems, Emerson says.

Emerson says that the device can manage the embedded service processors from any brand of server in their data center without having to buy additional management software.

The device also integrates capabilities delivered traditionally through multiple, disparate IT and facilities devices into a single product with four times the functionality in 25 percent of the size, Emerson says. It goes on sale in February 2012.

Earlier this month, AEG Power Solutions released its super-efficient Protect Blue family of modular uninterruptible power supplies for data centers.

The product range is engineered around AEG Power Solutions’ 250kW building blocks. Up to 16 units can be connected in parallel to support the redundancy requirements of larger critical loads, according to AEG.

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A second earth in our galaxy

A 'habitable' earth-like planet, which is orbiting around a sun-like star 600 light years away, has been discovered in our galaxy for the first time, researchers say.

A team of researchers from NASA's Kepler Mission has discovered what could be a large, rocky planet with a surface temperature of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit, comparable to a comfortable spring day on earth.

The discovery team, led by William Borucki of the NASA Ames Research Centre, used photometric data from the NASA Kepler space telescope, which monitors the brightness of 155,000 stars.

Earth-size planets whose orbital planes are aligned such that they periodically pass in front of their stars result in tiny dimmings of their host star's light dimmings that can only be measured by a highly specialized space telescope like Kepler.

The host star lies about 600 light-years away from us toward the constellations of Lyra and Cygnus.

The star, a G5 star, has a mass and a radius only slightly smaller than that of our sun, a G2 star. As a result, the host star is about 25 per cent less luminous than the sun.

The planet orbits the G5 star with an orbital period of 290 days, compared to 365 days for the earth, at a distance about 15 per cent closer to its star than the earth from the Sun.

This results in the planet's balmy temperature. It orbits in the middle of the star's habitable zone, where liquid water is expected to be able to exist on the surface of the planet.

Liquid water is necessary for life as we know it, and this new planet might well be not only habitable, perhaps even inhabited.

This new exoplanet is the smallest-radius planet discovered in the habitable zone of any star to date. It is about 2.4 times larger than that of the earth, putting it in the class of exoplanets known as super-earths.

"This discovery supports the growing belief that we live in a universe crowded with life," Carnegie's Alan Boss said.

"Kepler is on the verge of determining the actual abundance of habitable, Earth-like planets in our galaxy," Boss added.

The study will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

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