Wolves Removed from the Endangered Species List in Budget Bill (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Wolves have been persecuted from the moment colonists set foot in America and it continues to this day. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., attached a rider to the fiscal year 2011 budget bill that puts wolves back in the cross hairs of ranchers and hunters by removing them from the endangered species list within the next 60 days. This is the first time an animal has been removed from the endangered species list by Congress and Idaho and Montana are eagerly planning wolf hunts for the fall.

Nationwide, there are around 4,400 wolves living in the wild. An estimated 1,600 to 1,700 roam lands in the Northern Rocky Mountains, mainly in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Ranchers and hunters believe removing wolves from the endangered species list will make it possible for them to "manage" the wolf population. With "regulated" hunts, they can control the balance of nature with a rifle. But, when ranchers take over land for their use, wolves are left with a loss of habitat and diminished prey when buffalo, deer and elk are forced out by humans. Anti-wolf advocates want to manage their wolf problem by eliminating wolves once and for all. The claim by ranchers that wolves kill for sport is not true. Man kills for sport; wolves kill to survive.

Wolves are social animals who live in packs of four or more family members. They patrol their territory which is anywhere from 10 square miles up to 1,000 square miles. How far they roam depends on how plentiful their natural prey is. When ranchers take over land in a pack's territory, the end result is devastating for the wolf.

Ranchers loathe wolves, but they refuse to acknowledge their role in the problem. Hunters despise wolves because they lose an opportunity for a trophy. Wolves will forever be in the cross hairs of a hunter's gun; teetering on the brink of extinction because of money, political influence and intolerance for an animal that has a right to life. The wolf is persecuted and slaughtered out of fear, greed and arrogance.

Wolves keep ecosystems healthy. They prey on grazing animals which keeps them on the move so meadows and wetlands aren't overgrazed, which in turn supports healthy habitats for other species to thrive in. All ecosystems play a role in our survival and predators, like the wolf, maintain the balance of nature; not man.

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U.S. proposes lifting wolf protections in Midwest (Reuters)

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – U.S. wildlife officials proposed on Friday to strip federal protections from a growing western Great Lakes gray wolf population just as a some Rocky Mountain wolves would be removed from the endangered species list by an act of Congress.

About 4,000 gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula would lose their status as endangered or threatened species under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal submitted for public comment.

The announcement comes as the gray wolf is close to becoming the first creature ever taken off the U.S. endangered species list through legislation, rather than by scientific review, under a measure attached to the U.S. budget deal.

More than 1,200 wolves classified as endangered in Montana and Idaho would be de-listed by a "rider" to the budget bill, placing them under state control and allowing licensed hunting of the animals.

The measure, given final congressional passage by the Senate on Thursday, also applies to about three dozen wolves in Oregon, Washington state and Utah, and bars judicial review of the de-listings.

Essentially restoring a 2009 Fish and Wildlife decision struck down in court last August, the legislative de-listing takes effect within 60 days of being signed into law. President Barack Obama was expected to sign the bill on Friday.

In the Western Great Lakes region, the gray wolf population has exceeded recovery goals and continues to do well enough to be removed from federal protection, the wildlife service said. Each state also has developed a management plan to maintain healthy numbers of wolves.

The service estimates that there are 2,922 gray wolves in Minnesota, 690 in Wisconsin and 557 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The proposal also covers areas of adjacent states where the wolves have spread from the three states.

"We are taking this step because wolf populations have met recovery goals and no longer need the protection of the Endangered Species Act," Fish and Wildlife Service Acting Director Rowan Gould said in a statement.

The service recognizes two species of wolves in the Western Great Lakes -- the gray wolf and the eastern wolf that ranges from parts of eastern Canada and the Eastern United States.

The eastern wolf was once regarded as a subspecies, but recent genetic studies found it to be a distinct species, and the wildlife service said it has now launched a review throughout the animal's Canadian and U.S. range.

The gray wolves will remain classified as endangered in the Western Great Lakes during the comment period, except in Minnesota where they remain listed as threatened.

(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Steve Gorman and Greg McCune)

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Complaints end goldfish racing at Wash. state bar (AP)

TACOMA, Wash. – The weekly gold fish races at a Tacoma bar are canceled after it received complaints from animal rights activists.

Every Tuesday night the Harmon Tap Room would feature races in which cheap feeder fish from a pet store were "raced" down two 8-foot troughs. Racers guided the fish with squirt bottles.

Bartender Joel Cummings told KIRO-FM the fish were cared for when they weren't racing but occasionally they would pass away.

After complaints by phone and email, the Harmon Tap Room replaced goldfish racing with beer pong.

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Wolves to come off endangered list within 60 days (AP)

BILLINGS, Mont. – Federal wildlife officials say they will take more than 1,300 gray wolves in the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list within 60 days.

An attachment to the budget bill signed into law Friday by President Barack Obama strips protections from wolves in five Western states.

It marks the first time Congress has taken a species off the endangered list.

Idaho and Montana plan public wolf hunts this fall. Hunts last year were canceled after a judge ruled the predators remained at risk.

Protections remain in place for wolves in Wyoming because of its shoot-on-sight law for the predators.

There are no immediate plans to hunt the small wolf populations in Oregon and Washington. No packs have been established in Utah.

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Russia bans endangered polar bear hunt this year (AP)

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA, Associated Press Nataliya Vasilyeva, Associated Press – Thu Apr 14, 9:42 am ET

MOSCOW – Russia has banned the hunting of polar bears this year, thanks to a group with close ties to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a longtime defender of large endangered animals.

A Russian-U.S. commission last year agreed to restrict polar bear hunting to 29 animals per year for each country. But The Polar Bear program, established under Putin's patronage, said this week that Russia had waived its quota for bear hunting.

Although the polar bear is an endangered animal, officials in Russia and the U.S. have said hunting is vital for the indigenous people in Alaska and in far-eastern Russia across the Bering Strait.

The Polar Bear program, which said U.S. officials had long been reluctant to introduce the cap on hunting, said around 100 polar bears a year have been killed in Alaska in recent years.

"Measures taken by Russia will ensure that the United States will be killing at least 70 polar bears fewer than before, which, according to Russian specialists, will help to sustain and boost the population of this beautiful Arctic animal," the group said in a statement posted on Putin's official website.

Putin last year helped scientists put a tracking collar on a sedated male polar bear. Before leaving the bear, he patted the animal affectionately, shook his paw and said "take care."

He also joined scientists last year in studying the gray whale off Russia's Pacific Coast, firing darts from a crossbow to collect skin samples from a whale swimming near their small boat.

Putin also has championed the cause of endangered big cats. In 2008, he was given a 2-month-old female Siberian tiger cub for his birthday, which he later gave to a zoo in southern Russia.

In 2009, he supervised the release of two Persian leopards into a wildlife sanctuary near the southern resort of Sochi, fulfilling his pledge to reintroduce the big cats to the Caucasus region if Russia won the right to hold the 2014 Winter Games.

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Big Test Looms for British Space Plane Concept (SPACE.com)

SAN FRANCISCO — A huge, unmanned British space plane is on pace to start launching payloads into Earth orbit in less than a decade — provided it can pass a crucial engine test in June, its designers say.

The Skylon space plane — which would take off and land horizontally, like a commercial jet — is still a concept vehicle for now, but it recently passed several rigorous independent design reviews, the British company Reaction Engines Ltd, which is developing the spacecraft, announced Tuesday (April 12).

Private funding is lined up to see it through all stages of development, culminating with the start of commercial operations in 2020. That funding, however, is contingent on Skylon hitting some key milestones along the way, and a big one looms just a few months off.

In June, the Abingdon, Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines plans to test a component of its revolutionary hybrid jet/rocket engine. On the line is $350 million in investor funding — and perhaps the future of the project.

"It depends on this engine test working," explained Reaction Engines researcher Roger Longstaff.  "Everything depends on that." [Video: Skylon Space Station Delivery]

Longstaff spoke during a presentation here at the 17th International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies conference, which was organized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Meet Skylon

Skylon is based on the Hotol (horizontal take-off and landing) concept vehicle, first mapped out by British researchers back in the 1980s. The autonomous, reusable Skylon would fly to orbit and back like an airplane, taking off from and landing on a runway. [Infographic: Spaceships of the World]

In its current design incarnation, the Skylon space plane is a spaceship behemoth. It is about 276 feet (84 meters) long and weighs about 303 tons (275,000 kilograms) at liftoff. For comparison, the main truss of the International Space Station – which is the largest spacecraft ever built – is about 357 1/2 feet (109 meters) long and weighs about 408 tons (370,290 kg)

The space plane is expected to have a payload capacity of about 11.3 tons (10,275 kg), though Longstaff said future designs aim to boost that to 16.5 tons (15,000 kg).

Skylon could enable relatively cheap, frequent access to space, researchers said, with each plane able to take off again within two days of landing and capable of making about 200 flights over its lifetime.

The space plane would initially fly only cargo, but over time Skylon could carry about 30 passengers with minimal modifications, company officials have said. A pressurized passenger module could be slotted into Skylon's payload bay in place of a cargo container.

"Eventually, there's no reason at all it shouldn't be crewed," Longstaff told SPACE.com.

Dual engines to reach orbit

Unlike NASA's space shuttle and most other space plane designs, Skylon would not require booster rockets to help it along the way. Instead, it is desiged to get to space all on its own as a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle, using a unique hybrid jet/rocket engine called SABRE, which Reaction Engines is developing.

The SABRE engine will burn hydrogen and oxygen to produce thrust. It would act like a jet for the first part of Skylon's flight, breathing oxygen from atmospheric air until the plane reaches an altitude of 16 miles (26 kilometers) and a speed of Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound), Longstaff said.

SABRE would then switch over to more conventional rocket operations — combusting onboard hydrogen and oxygen — to make the rest of the journey into orbit.

The air-breathing phase of the SABRE engine saves greatly on the amount of liquid oxygen Skylon must carry, lowering costs substantially and giving the plane a higher payload capacity, Reaction Engines officials said. But it also imposes technical challenges, which the Skylon team must prove it can handle before the project progresses much further, they added.

Big test ahead

The atmospheric air whooshing into the SABRE engines at high speeds would be extremely hot. But for the engines to work efficiently during the air-breathing stage, that air needs to be cooled substantially — down to about minus 238 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 150 degrees Celsius) — before being compressed and reacted with the onboard hydrogen.

That's what the big test in June is for. Skylon engineers have developed a new "precooler" system to do the job. The system will get its first big test in the June trials.

If the precooler works, investors will chip in another $350 million, helping take the Skylon project to another level of development. That next phase would likely see vehicle design completion and a full engine demonstration by 2014, Longstaff said.

Longstaff expressed confidence that the precooler would work. If it does, Skylon would leap a huge hurdle, since most of the plane relies on technology that has already been proven out.

"That's the only brand-new piece of technology," Longstaff said of the precooler.

A path to space

If all goes well with the June test and beyond, Skylon hopes to start making suborbital test flights by 2016 and orbital test flights by 2018, said Sam Hutchison, the CEO of Skylon Enterprises Limited, which is securing funding for the Skylon project. Commercial operations could start in earnest by 2020.

Hutchison — who also spoke at the conference —  has mapped out funding for the various phases of Skylon's development, which he said will likely end up costing a total of about $15 billion.

"We're trying to normalize the development of a space plane," Hutchison told SPACE.com.

Investors are onboard and excited about Skylon's progress so far, he added. Independent design reviews by NASA and the European Space Agency, completed a few months back, were both quite positive about Skylon and its prospects, Hutchison said.

He's confident Skylon will pass the technical tests ahead of it, demonstrating that the space plane is a viable vehicle.

But those aren't the only hurdles in Skylon's path.

The lack of a coherent regulatory framework that allows and encourages commercial activities in space could keep Skylon — and the much-anticipated private spaceflight revolution — from really taking off, Hutchison said.

"What needs to be done is a redrafting of outer space law, in order to take into account commercial activities," Hutchison said.

This story was provided by InnovationNewsDaily, a sister site of SPACE.com. You can follow senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall.

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Diabetic completes first-ever polar flight of its kind (Reuters)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Former British Royal Air Force pilot Douglas Cairns succeeded in flying his light plane to the North Pole and landing it there this week, overcoming strong headwinds, the failure of his satellite-based navigation system and his diabetes to earn a place in aviation record books.

"It was rather surreal and very exhilarating to be at the crown of our Planet Earth with 24 hours of daylight," he said Friday in an Anchorage interview.

"I'm delighted to be able to do this kind of thing solo, with diabetes."

Cairns, 47, flew from Barrow, the northernmost community in the United States, to the North Pole on Tuesday in a Beechcraft Baron and completed the 1,300-mile flight in eight hours and 20 minutes.

He has submitted the time to the World Air Sports Federation for verification as a world speed record for a light, twin-engine piston aircraft. But the submission is largely academic because Cairns believes he is the first pilot to have made the trip in such an aircraft and to land it at the pole -- a claim backed by a spokesman for Guinness World Records.

After circling the geographic pole several times, Cairns landed at a nearby Russian ice camp, making him the first to land a twin-engine piston aircraft at the pole.

He then flew home back to Barrow in six hours and 20 minutes, aided by strong tailwinds.

For part of the journey, he had to navigate using the sun's position in the sky because global positioning satellite equipment becomes unreliable near the North Slope.

The flight was one of a series of expeditions Cairns, who helped found an organization called Pilots with Diabetes, has completed to demonstrate ways to overcome limitations imposed by the disease.

Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1989, Cairns was forced to end his RAF flying career and go into finance.

But now, five nations allow insulin-treated diabetics to hold private pilots' licenses. One is the United States, which allows diabetics to fly solo so long as they adhere to regular in-flight monitoring of blood-sugar levels, with corrective actions taken if warranted.

After U.S. authorities cleared diabetic pilots for flight in 1997, Cairns took to the skies again and has set various speed and distance records.

They include the first-ever around-the-world flight by a diabetic pilot in 2003 and a 50-state flight completed in 2010.

His North Pole expedition drew much interest in aviation-crazed Alaska. A veteran Alaska pilot, Ron Sheardown, has been on his support team for years. Alaska Airlines and Alaska-based Era Aviation provided hangar space. And Cairns and his plane were filmed for an appearance in a future episode of "Flying Wild Alaska," a Discovery Channel television series about Alaska bush pilots.

Next on Cairns' agenda is a planned speed record circumnavigation around the British coastline, a flight he intends to do in about 14 hours.

After that? "In the next few years, I would very much like to make a journey down to the South Pole," he said.

(Editing by James B. Kelleher and Jerry Norton)

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Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to Watch Astronaut Husband Mark Kelly Launch on the Endeavour (ContributorNetwork)

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, currently undergoing rehab at the Herman Memorial TIRR facility in Houston, will be able to travel to the Kennedy Space Center to watch her husband, Mark Kelly, command the last flight of the space shuttle Endeavour.

Giffords' doctors have not only stated it would be safe for Giffords to go to Florida for the launch, scheduled for Friday afternoon, but suggest that it would be an integral part of her rehabilitation. Rehab patients often, in the latter stages of their treatment, go on outside trips to practice the mobility skills that they have been busily relearning.

After the launch, Giffords will return to Memorial Houston TIFF to continue her rehab therapy.

Giffords will likely have some ironic viewing companions at Friday's shuttle launch. President Barack Obama and his family will also be attending. The happenstance is ironic because Giffords and President Obama have been on opposite sides of a roaring debate on the future of human space flight. The debate was ignited when Obama canceled the Constellation space exploration program and decided to go all in with government subsidized commercial space ships to take astronauts and cargo into low Earth orbit.

Giffords had been a stern critic of the new policy in the last Congress, when she had been chair of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. She is officially the ranking member of that subcommittee but has been unable to assume her congressional duties since being shot in the head during a Tucson event several months ago.

Giffords was bitterly vilified by supporters of President Obama, accused of everything from favoring space pork to guiding her policy decisions to support her husband's career.

The launch of the Endeavour space shuttle will be a bittersweet experience. It will be the last flight of that orbiter and the second to last flight of the space shuttle ever. The future of human space flight is uncertain, with controversy surrounding the Obama space policy still raging and the budget deficit crisis making the funding of any program uncertain.

Will Giffords be able to help shape that future? She is said to be progressing uncommonly well in her rehab. Whether she will ever return to congress is as of right now uncertain, however.

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Royal Wedding Fever? Not for NASA's Next-to-Last Space Shuttle Launch (SPACE.com)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- By a fluke of scheduling, NASA plans to launch the space shuttle Endeavour on its final mission the same day as the much-anticipated royal wedding in England.

Endeavour is slated to lift off Friday (April 29) at 3:47 p.m. EDT (1947 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center here. Earlier that day, Prince William of Wales, second in line for the British throne, is to wed Kate Middleton at a lavish state wedding at Westminster Abbey.

While the wedding is all that some can think about, NASA officials say they weren't aware of the coincidence when scheduling the launch. [Photos: Shuttle Endeavour's Final Mission]

Asked by a reporter if mission managers considered the wedding when setting the date for Endeavour's STS-134 launch, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, said: "The frank answer is no."

"I didn't realize when the wedding was until we moved the launch date," Gerstenmaier said. "We set that date independently, and then as I was setting the date somebody called me and told me about the wedding."

The launch date was chosen in consideration of what's called a beta-angle constraint, which limits the times the space shuttle can visit the space station based on sun angles to the station's solar arrays. Mission managers also weighed the schedule of the other rockets that must lift off from the same launch range.

"We work beta constraints and we work launch-range constraints. I haven't yet put on our manifest charts 'wedding constraints,'" Gerstenmaier said. "So we didn't factor that into our thinking."

While the wedding will certainly be high-profile, NASA hopes to attract media attention to the launch as well, which should receive a boost now that President Barack Obama has announced he and his family will watch in person from Cape Canaveral. Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, recovering from a head wound in an assassination attempt earlier this year, also plans to attend the shuttle launch. Her husband, Mark Kelly, is commander of the Endeavour mission.

The royal wedding is "a very, very media-heavy event, so certainly it's going to be time-shared with any coverage we might get, but I hope everybody's interested in these last few flights and that we do get some coverage," space shuttle lead flight director Gary Horlacher told SPACE.com.

After Endeavour's 14-day trip to the International Space Station, NASA plans only one more shuttle mission. Atlantis is slated to lift off June 28 on the final launch of the 30-year-old space shuttle program.

After that, NASA will send its three shuttles to museums for public display. For Endeavour, that will mean retirement in Los Angeles at the California Science Center.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Shuttle Endeavour baby of fleet; making 25th trip (AP)

Key facts about space shuttle Endeavour:

• Youngest of the three surviving space shuttles

• Replaced Challenger, destroyed during liftoff in 1986

• Named for ship commanded by British explorer James Cook

• First launch on May 7, 1992, for satellite capture and repair mission

• External fuel tank repaired from Hurricane Katrina damage

• Next home: California Science Center in Los Angeles

Key facts about Endeavour's last mission:

• Commanded by Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

• 25th and final flight; second to last of 30-year shuttle program

• Six-man crew, all veteran space fliers. Five Americans, one Italian

• 14-day mission; NASA expects to add two extra days

• Four spacewalks, the last by any shuttle crew member

• Carrying spare parts for International Space Station

• Delivering $2 billion particle physics experiment to space station

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How to Watch Space Shuttle Endeavour's Last Launch (SPACE.com)

Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Senior Writer,
Space.com Clara Moskowitz, Space.com Senior Writer,
space.com – Mon Apr 25, 10:00 am ET

Upwards of half a million people are expected to crowd Florida's Space Coast next Friday (April 29) to watch the space shuttle Endeavour lift off one more time.

If you're one of them, we've got you covered. Here's what you need to know to get a great view of Endeavour's launch:

Where to watch

The primary consideration of any launch viewing hopeful is the question of where to stake out a spot. The closest perch available to the public is at the NASA Causeway, about 6 miles (9.6 km) from the Endeavour's Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA sells tickets for $59 ($49 for children) for this spot, which offers an unobstructed view over the Banana River. [Photos: Shuttle Endeavour's Final Mission]

NASA also sells tickets to secondary sites at its Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Center, and at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, tickets for all three sites are long gone. If you haven't already ordered one months in advance, forget about it.

But fear not, for fantastic views are easy to find – and free – throughout the space coast.

The town of Titusville, about 12 miles across the Indian River from Kennedy Space Center, is a premiere spot. Its numerous parks along the water, including Space View Park and Parrish Park (which is located on the causeway between Titusville and the space center) are top choices for shuttle watchers.

"Titusville is definitely the place to go," said Ben Cooper, a space photographer for NASA and other media outlets. "It has the best view — there's no comparison."

Another good option is the Port Canaveral area, where cruise ships depart from. This spot is slightly farther (about 13 1/2 miles from Kennedy Space Center), but, as with Titusville, offers an unobstructed view of Endeavour's launch pad. [Most Memorable Space Shuttle Missions]

"That's the second best place after Titusville," Cooper told SPACE.com. "The view in my opinion is not as nice, because it's got telephone wires. But other than that there's no other place you can go where you can see the launch pad itself."

Nearby Cocoa beach is also a popular location.

To help you choose the perfect spot, Cooper's web site of launch viewing advice includes photos of shuttle launches from all the various options. His site is here: http://www.launchphotography.com/Shuttle_Launch_Viewing.html

When to go

Once you've decided where to go, you'll have to weigh rest and convenience against the necessity of heading out early for a primo location.

With Endeavour's liftoff toward the International Space Station scheduled for April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT (1947 GMT), folks should probably plan on arriving at public parks at least six to eight hours early to stake out a claim.

"I think it's going to require getting there earlier than usual," Cooper said, given the high-profile nature of this final launch for Endeavour, the penultimate launch of the space shuttle program. "For this one, probably get there in the morning. If you have camera equipment, I would get there when the sun comes up."

The largest crowds will likely show up a few hours before liftoff, while the most industrious will probably camp out overnight.

"I would go early in the morning and just plan to spend the day," said Robert Varley, executive director of Florida's Space Coast Office of Tourism.

What else you need to know

In the final moments, many people weigh their desire to take pictures of the blastoff to capture the moment against their wish to see the launch through their own eyes. [Video: NASA's First Space Shuttle Launch]

Cooper recommends trying to do some of both. He also suggested bringing a tripod and setting up the shot so that the camera could fire away automatically while you bask in the scene.

Other must haves are a blanket or chair, snacks, a book, and games for your kids to play to while away the waiting hours. Bug spray and sunblock won't go amiss either.

Finally, a handheld radio or scanner will allow you to tune in to NASA TV for countdown commentary to stay abreast of developments that could impact launch. If the weather isn't clear or a technical glitch arises, NASA will have to scrub the launch for the day and try again later.

One more chance

If you can't make it to Endeavour's STS-134 liftoff, NASA plans one more shuttle flight. On June 28, the shuttle Atlantis is slated to launch to the International Space Station, capping off the space shuttle program's 30-year career. 

 While near record crowds are expected for next week, the Atlantis mission will likely top even that.

Varley predicted that over a million people would turn out for their last chance to see a space shuttle blast off this summer.

"It's like everybody's looking on their bucket list and going, 'Ooh, I haven't seen that yet,'" Varley said. "It's just phenomenal."

Despite the crowds, seeing the shuttle's blindingly bright flame tail and feeling the roar of the rocket's engines is an unforgettable experience.

"In my opinion, it's worth fighting the crowds to see something that's never going to happen again," Cooper said.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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