Nasa - Happy 100th to the woman who has contributed to NASA When Eilene Galloway was born, the Wright brothers' historic flight was less than three years. This centenarian, having celebrated her 102nd birthday in May, can claim credit for helping to create the agency that landed man on the moon and plans to return.
Fifty years ago, July 29, 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, leading to the birth of NASA on 1 October 1958. Galloway helped make it all possible.
Galloway began work with the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress in 1941, research and writing House and Senate, including documents "Guided Missiles in Foreign Countries", released just before the Soviets launched Sputnik in October 1957.
In 1958, then U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson asked for help to congressional hearings that led to the creation of NASA and the entry of America into the space race. "The only thing I knew about outer space at this time, she says," is that the cow had jumped over the moon. "
Galloway helped draft the legislation, focusing on international cooperation and peaceful exploration. She later served as American representative in the drafting of treaties governing the exploration and uses of outer space and launched the field of space law and space law. She also served on nine advisory committees of NASA.
Galloway also worked for several decades with the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and was also instrumental in the creation of the International Institute of Space Law, which provides a forum for lawyers and others from around the world to study and discuss legal issues related to the exploration and use of space, according to the AAIA.
NASA confirms liquid lake on Saturn's moon
NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn's moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.
Scientists made the discovery using data from an instrument aboard the Cassini spacecraft. The instrument identified chemically different materials based on how they absorb and reflect infrared light. Before Cassini, scientists thought Titan would have global oceans of methane, ethane and other light hydrocarbons. More than 40 close flybys of Titan by Cassini show no such global oceans exist, but hundreds of dark, characteristics of the lake, as are present. So far, it is unclear whether these features were liquid or simply dark, solid material.
"This is the first observation that really pins that Titan has a surface lake filled with liquid," said Bob Brown of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Brown is the team leader of Cassini visual and a mapping tool. The results will be published in the July 31 issue of the journal Nature.
Ethane and several other simple hydrocarbons have been identified in Titan's atmosphere, which consists of 95 percent nitrogen, methane making up the remaining five percent. Ethane and other hydrocarbons produced from atmospheric chemistry caused by the breakdown of methane by sunlight.
Some of the hydrocarbons react further and form fine aerosol particles. All these things in Titan's atmosphere make detecting and identifying materials on the surface difficult, because these particles form a ubiquitous hydrocarbon haze that hinders the view. Liquid ethane was identified using a technique to eliminate interference from hydrocarbons in the atmosphere.
The visual and mapping instrument observed a lake, Ontario Lacus, in Titan's south polar region during a close flyby Cassini in December 2007. The lake is about 20,000 square kilometers (7,800 square meters
Posted on April 14, 2010.
