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AFTER MONTHS OF DELAYS, SPACEX LIFTS OFF FOR SPACE STATION DEMONSTRATION
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<div style="font-weight: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">By </span><b style="font-size: 100%; ">W.J. Hennigan</b></div><div style="font-weight: normal; "><span><span>Los Angeles Times</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; "><span><span>May 22, 2012, 5:30 a.m</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; "><span><span>In a pivotal moment for private spaceflight, a towering white rocket lifted a cone-shaped capsule into space early Tuesday on a mission to the International Space Station.<br /><br />SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carried the unmanned Dragon capsule into space after a 3:44 a.m. EDT launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., marking the first time a private company has sent a spacecraft to the space station.<br /><br />The mission is considered the first test of NASA's plan to outsource s</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; "><span><span>pace missions to privately funded companies now that its fleet of space shuttles is retired. SpaceX aims to prove to NASA that its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are ready to take on the task of hauling cargo -- and eventually astronauts -- for the space agency.<br /><br />"Today marks the beginning of a new era in exploration; a private company has launched a spacecraft to the International Space Station that will attempt to dock there for the first time," said NASA Administrator Charles Boldenin a speech at the cape. "And while there is a lot of work ahead to successfully complete this mission, we are certainly off to good start."<br /><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLgRmOJkTlvOJSvY6_jxIfrIBu3ftY9gn7XiIdzNZJ7Sv3TzZDmYpw4ZC6abLCt6YlFQ9zPKv73BTHy5WyhqR9ARLKYTca6N7mZpYkoJxM-rciUaD2smqUidaA9lwcgYGzKT9Fn6tpE4/s400/spacex.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5745460514098202370" />In a separate news conference, Elon Musk, SpaceX's 40-year-old billionaire founder and chief executive, spoke at company headquarters in Hawthorne. It was there that SpaceX employees had gathered, watched and cheered as the Falcon 9 climbed toward the heavens.<br /><br />"There's so much hope riding on that rocket," he said. "When it worked ... and they saw their handiwork in space and operating as it should, there was tremendous elation. For us, it's like winning the Super Bowl."<br /><br />But the launch is just the beginning, and the toughest tasks in the mission lie ahead.<br /><br />The Dragon capsule will rendezvous with the space station as it circles the Earth at about 17,000 mph. Once the Dragon catches up to the station, it must complete a series of complicated tests to determine if it is ready to dock.<br /><br />If all goes well, the crew aboard the station will snag the spacecraft with a robotic arm and lead it in. SpaceX hopes to dock the Dragon, which is designed to carry up to seven astronauts, as early as Friday.<br /><br />After years of testing, NASA is hoping to turn the job of carrying cargo and crews over to private industry at a lower cost. Meanwhile, the agency will focus on deep-space missions to land probes on asteroids and Mars.<br /><br />The agency has poured nearly $400 million in seed money into SpaceX in hopes that the company can one day complete routine missions to the space station. NASA is doling out $63 million to the Russians each time it wants to send an astronaut to the station.<br /><br />SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is one of the leading contenders to carry astronauts for NASA one day. Company officials say cargo missions will yield valuable flight experience toward accomplishing this goal by 2015.<br /><br />Still, the company has experienced repeated delays over the years. For instance, SpaceX planned to launch the current mission Saturday. The countdown was flawless until the last second, when the rocket engines briefly lit up and then went dark.<br /><br />SpaceX said a flight computer detected an anomaly in one of the rocket's nine engines and automatically shut down the launch sequence. Later that day, company engineers traced the problem to a faulty valve, and technicians fixed it within hours.<br /><br />That made Tuesday's launch all that more exciting for Musk, who said that when he saw the Falcon 9 finally lift off, "every bit of adrenaline in my body released at that point."<br /><br />Founded in 2002, SpaceX makes the Dragon and Falcon 9 at a sprawling facility in Hawthorne that once was used to assemble fuselage sections for Boeing 747s. The hardware is put on a big rig and trucked to Cape Canaveral for launches.<br /><br />The company, with about 1,800 employees, has a $1.6-billion contract to haul cargo in 12 flights to the space station for NASA. If the current mission is successful, SpaceX will begin fulfilling the contract later this year.<br /><br />SpaceX has now had three successful launches of the Falcon 9.<br /><br />With Tuesday's successful launch, the reusable Dragon became the first U.S.-made spacecraft to head to the space station since the space shuttle started flying more than 30 years ago.<br /><br />"We're at the dawn of a new era in space exploration," Musk said. "There are no precedents for what we're doing here."</span></span><div><br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-8460505502434573874?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/05/after-months-of-delays-spacex-lifts-off.html
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ARTFUL DODGER AT THE PORT OF BROWNSVILLE
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By <strong>Juan Montoya</strong><br /><br />Does the new Port of Brownsville Chief of Police have great timing, or what?<br />Just after former Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia jumped ship to <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2GHEi34FnRgJbqNLElCXezDLv85XMNpIq6AfprjTdYt7oSUKMVtkeIwredgZMlO_tV3-lhyphenhyphend97NKKel3otUq4M-vhZEZwT3SzKjofK5IhvNfXpD9CNaekdGyMSxhIK55OKl3wmyfw7o/s1600/chief.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 267px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 203px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5745397394118439954" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2GHEi34FnRgJbqNLElCXezDLv85XMNpIq6AfprjTdYt7oSUKMVtkeIwredgZMlO_tV3-lhyphenhyphend97NKKel3otUq4M-vhZEZwT3SzKjofK5IhvNfXpD9CNaekdGyMSxhIK55OKl3wmyfw7o/s320/chief.JPG" border="0" /></a>take over the seven-officer force of the Brownsville Navigation District, the tidy hold he had on revelations of activity going on in his department have unraveled.<br />Garcia left just before a wrongful death lawsuit was filed by the parents of Cummings teenager Javier Gonzalez, who was gunned down by two officers with assault rifles after getting the command to "take him down."<br />But that was after another lawsuit claiming that SWAT officers from the department shot down a mentally imbalanced man when he tried to resist their entering his home, even after the neighbors told officers that he wasn't the suspect they were seeking. In that case, Garcia was on the scene and personally directed the officers to storm the building.<br />That was bad enough.<br />But that was just the teeny-weenie tip of the iceberg that things were not going well in that passion-driven department. Apparently, the cauldron of lust was spreading like a bad dose of STDs on the corner of Jackson Street between Sixth and Seventh streets.<br />Just a week ago, we learned that former Police Commander William Ingram suddenly retired after it became public that he was caught by Internal Affairs investigators who seized his city-issued cell phone and discovered nude photos he had sent to a woman with whom he admitted he had been carrying a "relationship".<br />Ingram joined the department in 1977 and was promoted to Commander of Uniform Services September 16, 2009, during Garcia's watch.<br />According to PD sources, the report filed against Ingram by the woman had the victim claiming that he started sending her photos of himself and was persistent in that she send him some back. The woman is said to have complied with one photograph of herself, but sources say they were nothing as revealing as the numerous nude photos Ingram sent her from the police station gymnasium using his city-issued cell phone.<br />Coming, as it does, after a similar incident late December when the department weathered another texting scandal when a dispatcher was arrested on harassment charges for posting online text messages and photographs between her husband, a police officer and a female officer, this latest incident makes the department look bad, administration sources said.<br />But Garcia, just in time, in now chilling out at port and probably glad he slipped out unscathed.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-6133611500132515391?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/05/artful-dodger-at-port-of-brownsville.html
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CISNEROS GOES CRAZY IN SHERIFF'S RACE; OMAR'S LAWSUIT ON THE WAY
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizWjJOf5h0xAJeOKbVACqDNjAPkW132on45KCYGeCCNXIZ0gIyzRA5xgUFBmu2chdZdgqozLm6Nk1KB7pDY60NCIvK5P-Xp9mGQcI7gpkEjoFdo0bI2r1MUrtgCBAEFnn_3G97mbY4Xpk/s1600/shrf.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizWjJOf5h0xAJeOKbVACqDNjAPkW132on45KCYGeCCNXIZ0gIyzRA5xgUFBmu2chdZdgqozLm6Nk1KB7pDY60NCIvK5P-Xp9mGQcI7gpkEjoFdo0bI2r1MUrtgCBAEFnn_3G97mbY4Xpk/s400/shrf.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5745465522518795538" border="0" /></a>By <strong>Juan Montoya</strong><br /><br /><div>Apparently driven to despair by the fact that his brother and his own family endorsed his opponent Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio in a Sunday newspaper ad, challenger Joe Cisneros is now facing a libel lawsuit as a result of claiming to a broadcast reporter that the incumbent is "confused" and is in the "early stages of dementia."</div><br /><div>Those coments have caused the normally subdued sheriff to say he will come out gunning for Cisneros in a libel lawsuit.</div><br /><div>Cisneros made the comments to Channel 4's self-appointed speed cop and and taco-joint critic Ryan Wolf. He said the comment on the dementia was made to him by the sheriff's sister, a claim challenged by Lucio.</div><br /><div>"Mys sister doesn't even talk to him," the sheriff countered. "I have my checkbook ready for when I talk to my attorney today. When you start making statements about people's health or of people's perceived disabilities without any medical proof, that's crossing the line."</div><br /><div>In fact, Lucio said, society's views on personal disabilities have advanced to the point where people's privacy outweighs any petty political gain that may be had by revealing a person's alleged illness to the public.</div><br /><div>"If a my neighbor's child has autism or other disabilities, I don't have any right to spread that to the public and invade his privacy," he said. "A person's health is a very serious personal matter."</div><br /><div>Lucio said that he has semi-annual physicals and has received a thumbs up on his physical and mental well-being. The lawsuit may force Cisneros to reveal where he may have gotten the idea that Lucio may be afflicted by any type of mental problem.</div><br /><div>"Shooting from the hip is easy," Lucio said. "But as I have said, wearing an gun and a holster like he does in his campaign signs doesn't mean that the person will make a good sheriff. Spreading these kinds of untruths shows a lack of respect for our growing elderly population. We should respect their experience and age because if you add both of these qualities up it equals wisdom."</div><br /><div>This is Cisneros' third attempt to get the Democratic nod for his party's nomination for sheriff. In his statements to Wolf, Cisneros cited a statement that Lucio allege<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaxxYIKkeYlyBTFQC2oWlNalLLYE_nIZd07kHb0ZFol3-fNoPeaub1OjdGyflFzuqKt8SRDVrFJ4Cwms2io_tMJdnXeQcNEGtMAgYV_p4mLd5hsrHVd9dorWk8Bf9oYgvIs0a6Cl0PIOE/s1600/cisneros.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 194px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 160px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5745385723880162962" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaxxYIKkeYlyBTFQC2oWlNalLLYE_nIZd07kHb0ZFol3-fNoPeaub1OjdGyflFzuqKt8SRDVrFJ4Cwms2io_tMJdnXeQcNEGtMAgYV_p4mLd5hsrHVd9dorWk8Bf9oYgvIs0a6Cl0PIOE/s320/cisneros.jpg" border="0" /></a>dly made that he is not a county employee.</div><br /><div>"He says he's not a county employee... He's confused," Cisneros stated in his own television political advertisement. "By God if he receives a check from the county... With the name Cameron County... He is a county employee," Cisneros said. " His motto is honesty and integrity... He needs to be honest with the people... His own sister has made comments that he's at the early stages of dementia."<br />Lucio said the comment was only made because he's an elected official.<br />"We're going to be able to file a libel suit against him. My sister doesn't even talk to him... I think he's upset because his family is supporting me 110 percent," Lucio said.</div><br /><div>Lucio's supporters also say that Channel 4's Wolf is not entirely off the hook either because he made no effort to contact Lucio to verify Cisneros' libelous statements to verify the allegations.</div><br /><div>"If you repeat a libelous statement, you're just as guilty as the person making them," said one. "It makes you wonder who's crazier, the one who made them or the one who repeated them to the public." '</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-8694127364716030312?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/05/cisneros-goes-crazy-in-sheriffs-race.html
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