| LOS ANGELES — The retired space shuttle Endeavour rolled at a snail-like pace through narrow city streets on Saturday, arriving five hours late at a key checkpoint but steadily closing in on its final destination at a museum. Enthusiasm remained high despite the slow pace with an estimated 165,000 bystanders lining the streets to greet the spaceship. At its current pace, the shuttle could arrive at the California Science Center at about 2 a.m. PT on Sunday, said Paula Wagner, a spokeswoman for the center. Endeavour nosed out of Los Angeles International Airport before dawn on Friday for the 12-mile trip to its retirement home. Organizers had expected the shuttle to complete its journey on Saturday evening but it fell behind schedule crews had to make late adjustments to clear room for it. Shuttle Endeavour is new L.A. 'star' The shuttle, which has been a cause for cheers and expressions of awe from spectators watching it parade through the streets, will become a tourist attraction at the center. Endeavour was largely built in Southern California and was a workhorse of the U.S. space program, flying 25 missions. Astronaut Michael Fincke, who went to space in Endeavour, said he and other astronauts on the shuttle's parade route felt the shuttle's road trip -- one unlike any voyage it has ever taken -- was special.
"We've seen our beautiful planet Earth from space, we've been weightless, we've been able to fly -- no special effects needed when you're in space," Fincke told the crowd outside a south Los Angeles shopping mall. "And I tell you what, even though we've been in space we would not rather be anywhere else than where we are today," he said. Organizers had planned to have the Endeavour arrive at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza mall at 2 p.m. but instead it arrived after 7 p.m. about five hours behind schedule, said the organizers, a coalition that includes the Science Center and local authorities. A huge crowd gathered outside the mall, where a dancers and a high school marching band performed before the arrival of the Endeavour, at what was a key checkpoint because the ship had to make a 90-degree turn to the east. The trip from the mall to the museum is about 4 miles. Maintenance and tree trimming An estimated 100,000 spectators lined Martin Luther King Boulevard to watch the final, eastward leg of the journey through working-class south Los Angeles, a spokeswoman for the move's joint information center said. Earlier in the day, about 65,000 people watched the shuttle head north along Crenshaw Boulevard, said Steve Ruda, a battalion chief for the Los Angeles Fire Department. Thousands of spectators also watched earlier on Saturday when the shuttle stopped for a festival-like morning rally outside an arena in the nearby city of Inglewood. Endeavour flew from 1992 to 2011 and was built to replace the Challenger, which exploded seconds into a 1986 launch that killed all seven crew members on board. Endeavour was taken out of service at the end of the shuttle program. The shuttle is 122 feet long and 78 feet wide and stands 5 stories tall at the tail, which police said makes it the largest object ever to move through Los Angeles. Its combined weight with the transporter is 80 tons. Organizers say only a few inches separate Endeavour's wings from structures along the route, and workers have felled 400 trees along curbs to clear a path. The science center will plant more than 1,000 trees to make up for their loss. Some street lights, traffic signals, power poles and parking meters were temporarily removed. The project to move Endeavour will cost more than $10 million, said Shell Amega, a science center spokeswoman. Charitable foundations and corporations have donated money and services for the move. Endeavour has hop-scotched across the country from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on the back of a modified Boeing 747. It had been parked at the airport in Los Angeles since arriving on September 21 after a ceremonial piggyback flight around California. The shuttle will be displayed in a temporary hangar-style metal structure to protect it from the elements. In 2017, a 200-foot-tall (61-meter) structure will open in which Endeavour will stand vertically, said Ken Phillips, aerospace curator at the California Science Center. The other remaining shuttles also have found homes. The Smithsonian in Washington has Discovery at its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center museum in Virginia. New York City has the prototype shuttle Enterprise at its Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. And the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral has Atlantis, which the center will move to an on-site visitors complex next month. Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.  |
10/14/2012
Endeavour crawls through LA to final home
10/13/2012
Body may be slain University of Florida student
| By NBC News staff and wire services  Uncredited / AP University of Florida student Christian Aguilar, 18. CEDAR KEY, Fla. – The parents of missing University of Florida student Christian Aguilar believe that the body found in Levy County is their son, his father said Saturday. "I just want to make sure that everybody knows that our prayers have been heard. We, as a family believe that Christian has been found, but we will wait until the authorities confirm it, Carlos Aguilar said during a news conference in Gainesville. "At this moment the only think we want to say as a family, is to thank every single person that supports our family during this horrible time," he added. Aguilar's parents also they had not seen the remains, so the identification of the body was not confirmed yet, but they said they were glad they had a sense of closure. The body was found around 2:30 p.m. Friday by hunters at the Gulf Hammock Hunting Club, east of Cedar Key, according to the Gainesville Sun. Gainesville police said they responded to the area off State Road 24 on Parker Boulevard, at the request of the Levy County Sheriff's Office. The area is about 60 miles southwest of Gainesville. Christian Aguilar was last seen in Gainesville with a friend, Pedro Bravo, also 18, who has been charged with first-degree murder. Police say Bravo told them he beat Aguilar unconscious and left him in a parking lot. The body was found around 2:30 p.m. Friday by hunters at the Gulf Hammock Hunting Club, police said. "Two young fellas were looking for firewood by themselves," Fred Oliver, a volunteer with the sheriff's office, told the Gainesville Sun. "They picked up the scent, the odor of something dead." Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com  Brad Mcclenny / AP Officers drive on Parker Boulevard off State Road 24 near Cedar Key, Fla., on Friday, after a body that may be missing University of Florida student Christian Aguilar was found. Oliver told the Sun that the young men thought they had stumbled onto the remains of a dead deer, and maybe they could get a set of antlers. What they found was a decomposed, partially buried body. "It was obviously human," Oliver said, adding that it was near the dirt road. Authorities said they found blue Vans shoes, duct tape and blue jeans with the decomposed remains. The clothes matched the description of what Aguilar was wearing when he was last seen Sept. 20 with Bravo at a Gainesville Best Buy. Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter The remains need to be identified through forensic methods, but Oliver told the Sun, "They're almost sure they know who it is." Police initially charged Bravo with depriving a crime victim of medical care, but he was charged with murder after police said they found blood in Bravo's SUV and found Aguilar's backpack hidden inside a suitcase in Bravo's closet. More content from NBCNews.com: |
Skydiver to try again for record free fall
Pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria stands in the desert after completing the second manned test flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, New Mexico, on July 25. Baumgartner is aiming to jump from a higher altitude than anyone ever has -- 120,000 feet (about 23 miles), more than three times the cruising altitude of the average airliner -- with nothing but a space suit, helmet and parachute. 
Baumgartner sits in his capsule before the scheduled final manned flight of Red Bull Stratos in Roswell on Tuesday, October 9. 
Baumgartner's flight was delayed until further notice because of high winds. 
TV crews report from the launch site. 
Baumgartner works out during preparations for the flight in Roswell on Sunday, October 7. 
Baumgartner stands in his trailer during preparations Saturday, October 6. 
A crew member launches a weather balloon into the stratosphere on Thursday, October 4. 
Crew members recover the capsule after the second manned test flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell on July 25. 
Baumgartner steps out from the capsule during the second manned test flight on July 25. 
ATA crew members fill the balloon with helium at the flight line on July 25. 
Baumgartner plans to wear this suit during his jump. 
Western defense budget cuts may be unstoppable
| WASHINGTON — Whether or not America's politicians can find a way to sidestep the brutal automatic military cuts of sequestration, the era of rising Western spending on weapons and wars is over. That reality increasingly is challenging major arms manufacturers, spurring them to look for new markets, cost cuts and mergers. It is also confronting policymakers with difficult political and strategic choices as new rivals, particularly China, spend more on their armed forces. U.S. military spending still dwarfs that of other countries - the equivalent of the next 13 nations' spending by some estimates - but the global military balance is clearly shifting. With European states already cutting, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies this year reported that Asian military spending outstripped Europe's for the first time in several centuries. U.S. lawmakers may well avoid or delay automatic across-the-board budget cuts that would hit the military hard and are set to begin on January 2 if there is no deal on deficit reduction. But few see the United States avoiding military budget cuts in the next few years given that the government's debt burden has now surged above $16 trillion and continues to rise. Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney has pledged to increase Pentagon spending, particularly on the Navy. But he could find himself struggling to keep that promise if he defeats President Barack Obama next month. U.S. strategic options may soon be defined more by what Washington can afford than by what it believes it needs. "For the first time in our history, we may be facing a moment where we really do not have the money to do exactly what it is that the experts or the policy advisers ... suggest is the right thing," said Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center on Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Budget cuts could end up determining the shape of U.S. policy." 'Those days are over' "Whenever we found a problem, we cauterized it with cash," Undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Brett Lambert told a meeting of Reuters defense and aerospace reporters last month. "Those days are over." That is a reality some industry executives have quietly conceded. They have been pinning their hopes for growth on more sales to civilian government agencies and emerging states - an approach that has prompted viciously competitive battles for business with India, Brazil and the Gulf. Attempts to fold Britain's premier defense firm BAE into its larger European rival EADS were in part an acknowledgement of shrinking markets - even if differences between Britain, France and Germany ultimately killed the deal. Meanwhile, U.S. defense firms have already begun laying off staff and closing facilities to reflect lower demand and the $487 billion in cuts already planned for the next decade. U.S. defense spending in 2012 will total $612 billion, down slightly from 2010's $691 billion peak as operational contingency spending specifically earmarked for the Iraqi and Afghan wars fell, according to the Pentagon. The core Pentagon budget — with the cost of the wars excluded — is now $531 billion. As things stand, defense takes up around 20 percent of the entire federal budget, roughly the same as Social Security and massively outstripping federal spending on transportation, education and science. But overall U.S. military spending is now expected to drop for the first time in more than a decade, with the Pentagon proposing a base budget of $525 billion and war spending of just over $88 billion in the fiscal year that began October 1. When inflation is taken into account, it has been falling since 2010. The sequestration cuts would strip just over 11 percent from Pentagon spending. While that might not seem devastating, the pain would be shared indiscriminately - including in areas seen as increasingly vital, such as special operations and cyber warfare. Only on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that unnamed foreign actors were targeting U.S. computer control systems that operate chemical, electricity and water plants, as well as transportation. If the budget cuts go through as planned, more than 1 million jobs could be lost at U.S. weapons plants and in the surrounding communities, according to some estimates. Earlier this year, Lockheed Martin warned it might be forced to make 10 percent of its workforce redundant. But the campaign to stop sequestration, some suspect, could simply be the start of a much larger battle. Defense companies push back "Defense has already been cut through the muscle and we are now into the bone," said Marion Blakey, chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), pointing to 50 "significant sized" projects the Pentagon says it has already canceled. "I wish we lived in a safer world, but we don't." One of the three cardboard-mounted cartoons she often carries to meetings delivers a blunt message to politicians. "Defense cuts equal job losses" reads one, a 1930s-style pen and ink image of a line of muscular defense workers marching directly into a polling booth. "Workers return the favor."
Not everyone agrees. Opinion pollsters say defense often tops the list of areas where the public would like to see cuts, while fatigue over the last decade's wars makes new overseas commitments hard to sell. Some experts argue further efficiencies and cuts are more than possible. They suggest buying more flexible systems and using special forces, drones and new technology to replace more expensive traditional equipment. "The companies will put up a fight (against cuts)," said former U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, now chairman of the Center for a New American Security think tank. "But as long as the civilian and military leadership stick together, I don't think the companies will win." In Washington, a city full of defense lobbyists and where major firms help fund many private foundations that help draft policy, there is no shortage of authorities pointing to potential threats. China almost invariably tops the list, with its military spending perhaps only a fifth of that of the United States but by some estimates doubling every five years. Long-standing troublespots such as the Middle East also have not gone away. The argument from the AIA and others, however, goes well beyond the strategic - essentially saying that defense projects themselves are effectively a common good, driving economic activity and innovation at a difficult time. Some are openly skeptical, even within the industry. "We shouldn't build a carrier because it creates jobs," said Mike Petters, chief executive of shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls, the largest employer in several U.S. states including Virginia, whose votes could help decide the November 6 presidential election. "We should do it because we decide we need an aircraft carrier." 'Yet another switch' When Britain's newly elected government began its strategic defense review in 2010, it found itself severely limited by the cost of cancelling expensive pre-agreed contracts such as the purchase of two new aircraft carriers. Already over budget, costs surged further this year after the government changed its mind twice on whether to fit one of the ships with catapults for conventional aircraft or to simply rely on vertical-takeoff jets. One key reason costs escalate so fast, defense executives argue, has always been the shifting and excessively complex demands from government and military buyers. "The war fighter almost always wants to add yet another switch," said Petters at Huntington Ingalls. "I think it's our greatest challenge as an industry." Former Lockheed chief executive Norm Augustine famously predicted in 1984 that by the middle of the 21st century, a single fighter aircraft could be so expensive that the U.S. Air Force and Navy might only be able to afford a single airframe that they would share between them on alternate days. Now, with coffers emptying, governments may have no choice but to ask themselves whether something less than "best at all costs" could get the job done. "If you're chasing after a pirate with a Kalashnikov in a small boat, you don't necessarily need to do it with a multi-million dollar destroyer," British Chief of the Defense Staff David Richards told a Washington audience in May. Additional reporting by Reuters' Marcus Stern, Jim Wolf and Andrea Shalal-Esa. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp |
Western defense budget cuts may be unstoppable
| WASHINGTON — Whether or not America's politicians can find a way to sidestep the brutal automatic military cuts of sequestration, the era of rising Western spending on weapons and wars is over. That reality increasingly is challenging major arms manufacturers, spurring them to look for new markets, cost cuts and mergers. It is also confronting policymakers with difficult political and strategic choices as new rivals, particularly China, spend more on their armed forces. U.S. military spending still dwarfs that of other countries - the equivalent of the next 13 nations' spending by some estimates - but the global military balance is clearly shifting. With European states already cutting, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies this year reported that Asian military spending outstripped Europe's for the first time in several centuries. U.S. lawmakers may well avoid or delay automatic across-the-board budget cuts that would hit the military hard and are set to begin on January 2 if there is no deal on deficit reduction. But few see the United States avoiding military budget cuts in the next few years given that the government's debt burden has now surged above $16 trillion and continues to rise. Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney has pledged to increase Pentagon spending, particularly on the Navy. But he could find himself struggling to keep that promise if he defeats President Barack Obama next month. U.S. strategic options may soon be defined more by what Washington can afford than by what it believes it needs. "For the first time in our history, we may be facing a moment where we really do not have the money to do exactly what it is that the experts or the policy advisers ... suggest is the right thing," said Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center on Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Budget cuts could end up determining the shape of U.S. policy." 'Those days are over' "Whenever we found a problem, we cauterized it with cash," Undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Brett Lambert told a meeting of Reuters defense and aerospace reporters last month. "Those days are over." That is a reality some industry executives have quietly conceded. They have been pinning their hopes for growth on more sales to civilian government agencies and emerging states - an approach that has prompted viciously competitive battles for business with India, Brazil and the Gulf. Attempts to fold Britain's premier defense firm BAE into its larger European rival EADS were in part an acknowledgement of shrinking markets - even if differences between Britain, France and Germany ultimately killed the deal. Meanwhile, U.S. defense firms have already begun laying off staff and closing facilities to reflect lower demand and the $487 billion in cuts already planned for the next decade. U.S. defense spending in 2012 will total $612 billion, down slightly from 2010's $691 billion peak as operational contingency spending specifically earmarked for the Iraqi and Afghan wars fell, according to the Pentagon. The core Pentagon budget — with the cost of the wars excluded — is now $531 billion. As things stand, defense takes up around 20 percent of the entire federal budget, roughly the same as Social Security and massively outstripping federal spending on transportation, education and science. But overall U.S. military spending is now expected to drop for the first time in more than a decade, with the Pentagon proposing a base budget of $525 billion and war spending of just over $88 billion in the fiscal year that began October 1. When inflation is taken into account, it has been falling since 2010. The sequestration cuts would strip just over 11 percent from Pentagon spending. While that might not seem devastating, the pain would be shared indiscriminately - including in areas seen as increasingly vital, such as special operations and cyber warfare. Only on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that unnamed foreign actors were targeting U.S. computer control systems that operate chemical, electricity and water plants, as well as transportation. If the budget cuts go through as planned, more than 1 million jobs could be lost at U.S. weapons plants and in the surrounding communities, according to some estimates. Earlier this year, Lockheed Martin warned it might be forced to make 10 percent of its workforce redundant. But the campaign to stop sequestration, some suspect, could simply be the start of a much larger battle. Defense companies push back "Defense has already been cut through the muscle and we are now into the bone," said Marion Blakey, chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), pointing to 50 "significant sized" projects the Pentagon says it has already canceled. "I wish we lived in a safer world, but we don't." One of the three cardboard-mounted cartoons she often carries to meetings delivers a blunt message to politicians. "Defense cuts equal job losses" reads one, a 1930s-style pen and ink image of a line of muscular defense workers marching directly into a polling booth. "Workers return the favor." Not everyone agrees. Opinion pollsters say defense often tops the list of areas where the public would like to see cuts, while fatigue over the last decade's wars makes new overseas commitments hard to sell. Some experts argue further efficiencies and cuts are more than possible. They suggest buying more flexible systems and using special forces, drones and new technology to replace more expensive traditional equipment. "The companies will put up a fight (against cuts)," said former U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, now chairman of the Center for a New American Security think tank. "But as long as the civilian and military leadership stick together, I don't think the companies will win." In Washington, a city full of defense lobbyists and where major firms help fund many private foundations that help draft policy, there is no shortage of authorities pointing to potential threats. China almost invariably tops the list, with its military spending perhaps only a fifth of that of the United States but by some estimates doubling every five years. Long-standing troublespots such as the Middle East also have not gone away. The argument from the AIA and others, however, goes well beyond the strategic - essentially saying that defense projects themselves are effectively a common good, driving economic activity and innovation at a difficult time. Some are openly skeptical, even within the industry. "We shouldn't build a carrier because it creates jobs," said Mike Petters, chief executive of shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls, the largest employer in several U.S. states including Virginia, whose votes could help decide the November 6 presidential election. "We should do it because we decide we need an aircraft carrier." 'Yet another switch' When Britain's newly elected government began its strategic defense review in 2010, it found itself severely limited by the cost of cancelling expensive pre-agreed contracts such as the purchase of two new aircraft carriers. Already over budget, costs surged further this year after the government changed its mind twice on whether to fit one of the ships with catapults for conventional aircraft or to simply rely on vertical-takeoff jets. One key reason costs escalate so fast, defense executives argue, has always been the shifting and excessively complex demands from government and military buyers. "The war fighter almost always wants to add yet another switch," said Petters at Huntington Ingalls. "I think it's our greatest challenge as an industry." Former Lockheed chief executive Norm Augustine famously predicted in 1984 that by the middle of the 21st century, a single fighter aircraft could be so expensive that the U.S. Air Force and Navy might only be able to afford a single airframe that they would share between them on alternate days. Now, with coffers emptying, governments may have no choice but to ask themselves whether something less than "best at all costs" could get the job done. "If you're chasing after a pirate with a Kalashnikov in a small boat, you don't necessarily need to do it with a multi-million dollar destroyer," British Chief of the Defense Staff David Richards told a Washington audience in May. Additional reporting by Reuters' Marcus Stern, Jim Wolf and Andrea Shalal-Esa. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp |
Woman survives hours in sea after plane crash
| By Gil Aegerter, NBC News A woman who survived the crash of an aircraft on Saturday spent hours in the ocean off the U.S. Virgin Islands before being rescued and crews were searching for three other people six miles south of St. Thomas, the Coast Guard said. The twin-engine Piper Aztec had been delivering newspapers to St. Croix and picked up passengers before heading back to St. Thomas, David Mapp, interim Virgin Islands Port Authority executive director, told The Associated Press. The Piper was reported overdue at 7:50 a.m. Saturday, Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad, based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, told NBC News. He said it was unclear when the aircraft took off. Aircraft in the area, including a C-130 Hurricane Hunter tracking Tropical Storm Rafael, reported a debris field, the Coast Guard said in a statement. A Coast Guard helicopter spotted Valerie Jackson in the water about 2 p.m. local time and directed a Virgin Islands Department of Natural Resources boat to her. She told her rescuers that another woman and two men had been on the aircraft and she was taken to St. Thomas for treatment, the Coast Guard said. The AP reported that Federal Aviation Administration records showed the plane's certification status had been terminated. More content from NBCNews.com: |