Thursday Tech News

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In the 54 months since the ISS opened, the crew has performed many experiments and studies on sciences and technologies that could be used in the next generation of space exploration, including long-term missions to the moon and Mars. Since 2003, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on it way back to Earth, the space station's work has been muted. NASA removed one of its three-member crews to save on resources, and the mission's completion date was pushed from 2006 to 2010.

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None of the falling pieces hit the Discovery orbiter and, based on early analysis, shuttle managers say it appears safe to land. “But if this had come off earlier [in the flight], we think this could have been very bad,” says deputy shuttle manager Wayne Hale. In 2003, falling foam hit Columbia's wing, leaving a hole that led to the craft's destruction during re-entry. Now, having discovered that the problem has not been solved, NASA has grounded the shuttle fleet. The next shuttle flight was scheduled for September, but until the foam problems are fixed, shuttle managers say that Atlantis will stay on the ground.

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Both the US and Australian governments have been investing heavily in recent years in research and development for “clean coal” technologies. The aim is to reduce pollution from burning coal, which is currently the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. Their companies will now hope for increased access to Asian markets for their technologies.

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A Xeon chip for blade servers due in the first half of 2006 derives from the Pentium M family, the company's notebook chip family, said Stephen Thorne, marketing manager of the server platform group at Intel. Code-named Sossaman, the chip puts out a maximum of 31 watts, fairly low for server chips, which can boast thermal ceilings of 110 watts.