Obama makes call to space station

15 July 2011 Last updated at 18:19 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News ISS and Atlantis crews take a call from the US President Barack Obama US President Barack Obama joked with astronauts in a call to the International Space Station (ISS).

When he came on the line, the American leader said: "This is President Obama, who am I talking to?"

After the crew introduced themselves, he quipped: "Well, that's funny because I was just dialling out for pizza; I didn't expect to end up in space."

Mr Obama called the ISS to pay tribute to the crew of space shuttle Atlantis on its final visit to the station.

When Atlantis returns to Earth next Thursday, the ship will join the US space agency's (Nasa) other shuttles in retirement.

"There have been thousands who have poured their hearts and souls into America's space shuttle programme over the last three decades that are following this mission with special interest," the president observed. "To them and all the men and women of Nasa, I want to say thank you. You helped our country lead the space age and you continue to inspire us."

Mr Obama has set Nasa on a path to commercialising low-Earth orbit space transportation. He wants the next generation of American vehicles that taxi astronauts to and from the space station to be developed and operated by private companies.

The first of these ships could fly in the next three to four years. As an incentive, the Atlantis crew will be leaving on station a special flag flown by the maiden shuttle mission back in 1981. The first commercial crew to arrive at the ISS will be able to claim it as a prize in what Mr Obama described as a "capture the flag moment for commercial spaceflight".

Obama: "I was just dialling out for pizza"

"We sure hope to see some of our commercial partners climbing onboard really soon," said Atlantis shuttle commander Chris Ferguson. "I know there is a lot of competition out there, a lot of people are fervently working towards this goal to be the first to send a commercial astronaut into orbit; and we look forward to seeing them here soon."

Within minutes of the Obama call to the ISS, one of the leading companies bidding to provide commercial crew transportation, SpaceX of California, had posted on its Twitter stream: "SpaceX commencing flag capturing sequence…"

The Atlantis crew are in the midst of a very busy few days at the ISS. They brought up more than 3.5 tonnes of supplies, including over a tonne of food. All of it has to be transferred to permanent storage positions on the station, and then 2.5 tonnes of rubbish must be put inside the shuttle for the return to Earth.

Nasa has extended the mission by one day. Atlantis is due to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on 21 July local time.

"It's going to be sad to retire the shuttle," commander Ferguson said in an earlier call with the American media. "That said, it's had a very long and storied career. It's done tremendous things.

"If it weren't for the space shuttle, the station wouldn't be here and it certainly wouldn't be as large as it is." he added.

The Southern Lights seen from the ISS. In the foreground (left to right) are a station solar wing, a robotic boom and the docked Atlantis Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Bug makes record noise with penis

30 June 2011 Last updated at 01:51 By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature Tiny bugs make huge sounds with a surprising organ A tiny water boatman is the loudest animal on Earth relative to its body size, a study has revealed.

Scientists from France and Scotland recorded the aquatic animal "singing" at up to 99.2 decibels, the equivalent of listening to a loud orchestra play while sitting in the front row.

The insect makes the sound by rubbing its penis against its abdomen in a process known as "stridulation".

Researchers say the song is a courtship display performed to attract a mate.

Micronecta scholtzi are freshwater insects measuring just 2mm that are common across Europe.

In a study published in the journal PLoS One, the scientists discovered that the small animals make a mighty sound.

The team of biologists and engineering experts recorded the insects using specialist underwater microphones.

On average, the songs of M. scholtzi reached 78.9 decibels, comparable to a passing freight train.

"We were very surprised. We first thought that the sound was coming from larger aquatic species such as a Sigara species [of] lesser water boatmen," said engineering expert Dr James Windmill from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

"When we identified without any doubt the sound source, we spent a lot of time making absolutely sure that our recordings of the sounds were calibrated correctly."

Continue reading the main story Stridulation is the act of rubbing two body parts together to produce a soundResonating sounds are made when a ridge is rubbed across a finely ridged surfaceIt is most commonly associated with grasshoppers and crickets but some beetles, bugs and even spiders are known to chirp, chirrup and hiss in this wayOnly one species of mammal, the streaked tenrec, is known to stridulate by rubbing its quills togetherDr Windmill explained that the reason the insects don't deafen us is down to the bug's underwater lifestyle.

Although 99% of the sound is lost when transferring from water to air, the songs were still loud enough to be audible to the human ear.

"The song is so loud that a person walking along the bank can actually hear these tiny creatures singing from the bottom of the river," said Dr Windmill.

The majority of the loudest animals on Earth are also the biggest, with blue whale songs reaching 188 dB and elephants' rumbling calls measuring 117 dB.

Although remarkable acoustic signals are made by a range of invertebrates, including the miniature cricket and preying mantis, and by large mammals, none compare to M. scholtzi once body size is taken into account.

"If you scale the sound level they produce against their body size, Micronecta scholtzi are the loudest animals on Earth," said Dr Windmill.

Researchers believe that sexual selection could be the reason why the insects' songs reach such high amplitude.

"We assume that this could be the result of a runaway selection," biologist and co-author Dr Jerome Sueur from the Museum of Natural History, Paris, told the BBC.

"Males try to compete to have access to females and then try to produce a song as loud as possible potentially scrambling the song of competitors."

Dr Sueur explained that the competition could have exaggerated the volume of males' songs over time.

In many insects, the song volume is limited because predators would hear them, but observations suggest that M. scholtzi lack auditory predators.

Modifications

To produce the intense sound, the water boatmen "stridulate" by rubbing a ridge on their penis across the ridged surface of their abdomen.

"There is at least another one insect producing sound with its genitalia. This is a pyrallid moth, Syntonarcha iriastis, that uses highly modified genitalia to produce ultrasonic signals," explained Dr Sueur.

The tiny bugs belong to a family known in the UK as lesser water boatmen

"Insects seem to be able to use any part of their body to generate sound. Some of them use their wings, others their legs, abdomen, head, wings, thorax etcetera."

What makes M. scholtzi extraordinary is that the area they use to create sound only measures about 50 micrometres across, roughly the width of a human hair.

"We really don't know how they make such a loud sound using such a small area," said Dr Windmill.

Without any obvious adaptations to amplify the sound, the question of how the animals physically make such a loud call remains a mystery.

"These very small bugs create sound at very high level, and it could be very useful for future ultrasonic systems to learn how they do that," said Dr Windmill.

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Endeavour makes last touch-down

1 June 2011 Last updated at 06:35 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Endeavour landed at the Kennedy Space Center for the final time

Space shuttle Endeavour has brought its 19-year operational career to a close with a textbook landing in Florida.

The vehicle swept into a night-time touch-down at the Kennedy Space Center after a successful trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

The US space agency (Nasa) is retiring its shuttle fleet and Endeavour will now be prepared for public display at a science museum in Los Angeles.

Only the Atlantis ship has yet to make a final outing.

It was moved to Kennedy's one active launch pad late on Tuesday night to get it ready for that swansong, which is expected to occur next month.

Endeavour's rear wheels touched the runway at Kennedy at 0234 local time (0634 GMT).

"Your landing ends a vibrant legacy for this amazing vehicle that will long be remembered. Welcome home, Endeavour," Mission Control radioed to the ship once it had come to a stop.

Continue reading the main story Endeavour was the last orbiter to be built and flew its maiden voyage on 7 May, 1992It is named after the ship commanded by the British explorer James Cook from 1769 to 1771Made the first American ISS construction flight, delivering the Unity ModuleCarried out the mission to correct the Hubble Space Telescope's flawed visionIts radar map of the planet is one of the most used Earth-observation data-sets ever acquired"It's sad to see her land for the last time, but she really has a great legacy," responded Commander Mark Kelly.

Endeavour was the youngest member of the fleet, built as a replacement for the Challenger vessel which was destroyed on launch in 1986.

The vehicle made its maiden flight on 7 May, 1992. On completion of this 25th and final mission, it has spent a cumulative 299 days in orbit, travelling more than 197.6 million km (122.8 million miles) in the process.

Nasa is committed to ending its shuttle programme because the vehicles are too costly to maintain. The agency believes a more affordable approach to getting astronauts to the ISS can be achieved by contracting out their transport to private companies. The first of these commercial carriers is expected to enter service sometime in the middle of the decade.

Nasa will concentrate its efforts and resources on a Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) that can go beyond the space station to destinations such as asteroids.

"We are very proud of Endeavour's legacy, and this penultimate flight of the space shuttle programme once again demonstrated the amazing skill and dedication of our astronauts and the entire workforce," Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.

"As we begin the transition from the shuttle programme to the commercial transportation of our crews and cargo, our ability to tackle big challenges remains steadfast and will ensure that Nasa reaches even more destinations farther in the Solar System."

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer now sits atop the space station truss, or backbone

Endeavour spent just over 11 days attached to the ISS following its launch on 16 May. The ship, with its crew of six, had gone to the platform to install the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a seven-tonne detector designed to survey the blizzard of high-energy particles that are fired at Earth from all corners of the cosmos.

Scientists hope that by characterising these cosmic rays, they can learn more about the origins and make-up of the Universe.

Endeavour had also carried up a tray of critical spare parts for the ISS that included cooling, robotic and communications equipment. The four spacewalks conducted by Endeavour crewmembers Drew Feustel, Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff, to carry out routine maintenance on the exterior of the platform, were the last in shuttle history.

And by flying on this mission, Fincke, a colonel in the United States Air Force, has broken the record for the most time spent in space by an American. His 382 days in orbit just beats the 377-day mark set by Peggy Whitson.

Much of the media focus on Endeavour's flight has centred on Mark Kelly. He stood down from the mission briefly in January when his wife, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head by a gunman at a constituency meeting outside a Tucson supermarket.

She made sufficient progress in her rehabilitation to permit Kelly to re-join the mission, and was even present to see Endeavour's launch from Kennedy on 16 May. But Ms Giffords was not present for the landing.

Nasa is already looking towards the Atlantis flight. Just as Endeavour was landing, the sister ship was moving into position at Launch Pad 39A.

Thousands of Kennedy workers and their families had turned out to witness the historic roll-out. "The show pretty much tells itself," said Christopher Ferguson, the astronaut who will command Atlantis on its July voyage. "We're going to look upon this final mission as a celebration of all that the space shuttle has accomplished over its 30-year life span."

Atlantis has been moved to the launch pad ahead of its July mission to the ISS Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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