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Is Millionaire Space Tourist Planning Trip to Mars?

Buzz is building about a planned 2018 private mission to Mars, which may launch the first humans toward the Red Planet. A nonprofit organization called the Inspiration Mars Foundation — which is led by millionaire Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist — will hold a news conference on Feb. 27 to announce the 501-day roundtrip mission, which will aim for a January 2018 launch. "This 'Mission for America' will generate new knowledge, experience and momentum for the next great era of space exploration," Inspiration Mars officials wrote in a media advisory yesterday (Feb. 20). "It is intended to encourage all Americans to believe again, in doing the hard things that make our nation great, while inspiring youth through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and motivation." Tito made history in 2001, plunking down a reported $20 million for an eight-day trip to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. [Photos: The First Space Tourists] Tito will participate in the Feb. 27 news conference. So will Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, CEO and president, respectively, of Paragon Space Development Corp., which has expertise in life-support systems; and space-medicine expert Jonathan Clark of the Baylor College of Medicine. The speakers' backgrounds and the lofty goals articulated in the media advisory have led some people to speculate that Inspiration Mars is planning a manned mission to the Red Planet. And it looks like that may be the case, according to some media reports. On March 3, Tito will give a talk called "Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free Return Mission in 2018" at an aerospace conference in Montana, the NewSpace Journal reported today (Feb. 21). The NewSpace Journal says it obtained a copy of the paper Tito plans to present in Montana and gives a summary of its main thrust. Tito's paper discusses "a crewed free-return Mars mission that would fly by Mars, but not go into orbit around the planet or land on it. This 501-day mission would launch in January 2018, using a modified SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket," the NewSpace Journal writes. "According to the paper, existing environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) technologies would allow such a spacecraft to support two people for the mission, although in Spartan condition." The mission would be privately financed and cheaper than previous estimates for manned Mars efforts, the NewSpace Journal adds, though no overall cost is given. The purported involvement of California-based SpaceX is not a huge surprise, as company founder Elon Musk has repeatedly stressed his desire to help humanity reach and eventually colonize Mars. Indeed, SpaceX has been developing a mission concept called "Red Dragon," which would use its Dragon capsule to send astronauts to the Red Planet. A 501-day mission would pose potentially serious physiological and psychological issues for astronauts (standard stints aboard the space station are currently just six months). Researchers have tried to understand the psychological effects of being isolated in cramped quarters for long stretches, notably during the Russia-based Mars500 mock mission, which wrapped up in November 2011. But the physiological effects may be tougher to simulate and mitigate, experts say.

Alemania investiga posible fraude en huevos orgánicos

BERLÍN (Reuters) - Autoridades alemanas están investigando un posible fraude a gran escala de productores de huevos orgánicos en medio de crecientes preocupaciones sobre las prácticas de la industria alimentaria tras el escándalo de la carne de caballo en Europa. El estado de Baja Sajonia, en el norte de Alemania, un gran centro agrícola, ha abierto investigaciones en unas 150 granjas sospechosas de vender deliberadamente huevos producidos por gallinas hacinadas bajo un sello orgánico. Otros dos estados están investigando otras 50 explotaciones agrarias. "Si las acusaciones (contra las granjas) son fundadas, entonces estamos hablando de un fraude a gran escala: fraude contra los consumidores pero también fraude contra las muchas granjas orgánicas en Alemania que trabajan honestamente", dijo el lunes la ministra de Agricultura alemana, Ilse Aigner, en un comunicado. La ministra instó a los gobiernos regionales a garantizar el pleno cumplimiento de las leyes de Alemania y de la UE sobre la producción de alimentos ecológicos, añadiendo que los consumidores deben tener plena confianza en los sellos de los productos. Producir huevos orgánicos cuesta unos 10 céntimos más que los que se producen bajo condiciones industriales estándares. Christian Meyer, consejero de agricultura en el recién nombrado gobierno de Baja Sajonia, prometió tratar con dureza a cualquier granja que viole la ley. La alimentación orgánica es una gran industria muy comprometida con el medio ambiente en Alemania, donde muchos consumidores están dispuestos a pagar algo más por huevos, carne, verduras y otros productos que creen que han sido producidos orgánicamente. La sospechas de un fraude en los huevos orgánicos coinciden con el descubrimiento de que carne de caballo fue catalogada como ternera en alimentos procesados vendidos por toda Europa. El escándalo ha provocado la retirada de platos precocinados y ha dañado la confianza en la industria alimentaria del continente. Hace dos años se extendió por la Unión Europea una alerta sanitaria cuando las autoridades alemanas dijeron que piensos contaminados con dioxinas habían alimentado a gallinas y cerdos, contaminado a huevos y a la carne de aves de corral y cerdos en las granjas afectadas.

Muere a los 85 años el líder del pueblo de China donde todos son millonarios

Shanghái (China), 19 mar (EFE).- Wu Renbao, el antiguo secretario general del Partido Comunista de China (PCCh) en la aldea de Huaxi (provincia oriental de Jiangsu), conocido por ser el más rico del país y porque todos sus habitantes originales de los años ochenta son millonarios, acaba de morir de cáncer de pulmón a los 85 años. Según recoge hoy el diario "Shanghai Daily", Wu, nacido en 1928, murió ayer en su casa de Huaxi, pueblo del municipio de Jiangyin donde sus más de 1.600 habitantes originales son millonarios. Gracias a las cuatro décadas de liderazgo de Wu, campesino como sus vecinos, Huaxi pasó de ser una de las aldeas más pobres de Jiangsu, en los años setenta, a consolidar un milagro económico que ha hecho ricos a todos sus vecinos iniciales. La aldea, a 110 kilómetros de Shanghái, fue fundada en 1961, y Wu la convirtió desde los ochenta en un conglomerado empresarial cooperativo, la Compañía Aldea de Huaxi (Jiangsu Huaxicun), de la que todos los vecinos de entonces son accionistas, aunque hoy tiene numerosos nuevos habitantes más humildes. Wu Renbao cuestionó desde los ochenta la tendencia oficial que en aquel momento dividía el campo para su uso en pequeñas parcelas familiares, y promovió la colectivización de los cultivos de Huaxi, idea que evolucionó en los noventa con la creación de empresas y fábricas colectivas en manos de la población. Pese a la prosperidad económica de Huaxi, el nieto del propio Wu Renbao, Wu Hao, aseguró a Efe en 2008 que, por el propio espíritu de la población local, "Huaxi nunca será una ciudad, el 'viejo secretario' lo dejó muy claro: Huaxi es una aldea". El "viejo secretario" fue alzado con el tiempo como todo un modelo entre los líderes rurales del PCCh para todo el país, y llegó a ocupar una portada de la revista "Time" en 2005. Wu recibió dos veces en su vida el premio de Trabajador Modelo Nacional y fue diputado del Legislativo chino, aunque también recibió a veces críticas de los vecinos menos afortunados de Huaxi, que lo acusaban de "dictador". EFE

Global internet slows after 'biggest attack in history'

The row centres on the blocking of a web-hosting company alleged to be hosting spam websites The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack in history. A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks flooding core infrastructure. It is having an impact on widely used services like Netflix - and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email services. Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks. Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation which aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content. To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists - a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes. Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host which states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material. Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide "what goes and does not go on the internet". Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack. Cyberbunker has as yet offered no reply to the BBC when contacted directly. 'Immense job' Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC the scale of the attack was unprecedented. "We've been under this cyber-attack for well over a week. 'Decapitating the internet' Internet browser address bar Writing exactly one year ago for the BBC, Prof Alan Woodward predicted the inherent weaknesses in the web's domain name system. He wrote: "It is essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless." "But we're up - they haven't been able to knock us down. Our engineers are doing an immense job in keeping it up - this sort of attack would take down pretty much anything else." Mr Linford told the BBC that the attack was being investigated by five different national cyber-police-forces around the world, but said he was unable to disclose more details as the forces in question were concerned that they too may suffer attacks on their own infrastructure. The attackers have used a tactic known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which floods the intended target with large amounts of traffic in an attempt to render it unreachable. In this case, Spamhaus's Domain Name System (DNS) servers were targeted - the infrastructure that joins domain names, such as bbc.co.uk, the website's numerical internet protocol address. Mr Linford said the attack's power would be strong enough to take down government internet infrastructure. "If you aimed this at Downing Street they would be down instantly," he said. "They would be completely off the internet." He added: "These attacks are peaking at 300 gb/s (gigabits per second). "Normally when there are attacks against major banks, we're talking about 50 gb/s." Clogged-up motorway The knock-on effect is hurting internet services globally, said Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey. "If you imagine it as a motorway, attacks try and put enough traffic on there to clog up the on and off ramps," he told the BBC. "With this attack, there's so much traffic it's clogging up the motorway itself." Spamhaus is able to cope, the group says, as it has highly distributed infrastructure in a number of countries. The group is supported by many of the world's largest internet companies who rely on it to filter unwanted material. Mr Linford told the BBC that several companies, such as Google, had made their resources available to help "absorb all of this traffic". The attacks typically happened in intermittent bursts of high activity. "They are targeting every part of the internet infrastructure that they feel can be brought down," Mr Linford said. "We can't be brought down. "Spamhaus has more than 80 servers around the world. We've built the biggest DNS server around."