Mar 23 2005
From The Space Library
NASA announced findings from research exploring the impact of black carbon or soot on Earth's climate, findings that provided new and additional evidence that pollution generated through the process of incomplete combustion contributes to the accelerated melting of sea ice and snow, as well as to the changing atmospheric temperatures in the Arctic region. Dorothy M. Koch, of Columbia University and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and James E. Hansen, also of GISS, coauthored the study, using satellite data and computer models to recreate the climate and to track pollution. In addition to confirming past findings regarding the relationship between pollution and climate change in the Arctic region, the study had found that most of the pollution in the environment and the atmosphere of the Arctic did not originate in the developed world, but rather in southern Asia, which had the highest level of industrial soot emissions in the world. Using the GISS General Circulation Model (GCM) to locate the origins of Arctic soot, Koch and Hansen had found that one-third of the pollution originated in southern Asia, one-third was the result of burning vegetation and natural materials around the world, and the remainder originated in Russia, Europe, and North America. (NASA, “NASA Study Finds Soot May Be Changing the Arctic Environment,” news release 05-084, 23 March 2005, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/mar/HQ_05084_arctic_soot.html (accessed 29 June 2009); Miguel Bustillo, “Airborne Soot Adds To Arctic Melting, Study Finds,” Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2005.)
NASA and its partner the Spaceward Foundation, a publicly funded, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the cause of space access, announced prizes totaling US$$400,000 for four competitions. The competitions would be the first under NASA's Centennial Challenges program, designed to promote technical innovation in support of the Vision for Space Exploration and NASA's goals. The first two competitions, the Tether Challenge and the Beam Power Challenge, would challenge innovators to focus on developing lightweight, yet strong, tether materials and wireless power transmission technologies. Winners of each of the initial 2005 challenges would receive a prize of US$50,000. The Tether Challenge would require teams to make the strongest tether of a specified diameter. Competing in a tournament-style bracket system, the tethers would be stretched until they broke, with the overall winner competing against NASA's “house tether” to win the cash. The Beam Power Challenge would require teams to use wireless technology to lift a weight off the ground. NASA planned a second set of Tether and Beam Power challenges, with a greater degree of difficulty, for 2006. (NASA, “NASA Announces First Centennial Challenges' Prizes,” news release M05-083, 23 March 2005, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/mar/HQ_m05083_Centennial_prizes.html (accessed 2 September 2005); Robert Roy Britt, “NASA Details Cash Prizes for Space Privatization,” Space.com, 24 March 2005, http://www.space.com/news/050323_centennial_challenge.html (accessed 2 September 2009).)
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