A Great Launch, A Challenging Mission Ahead

Launch of STS-134

Space Shuttle Endeavour lifts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on its final mission. Commander Mark Kelly and crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station.

STS-134: Endeavour in Orbit

After an on-time liftoff and healthy climb to orbit from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour's spent external fuel tank is jettisoned.

Mon, 16 May 2011 11:35:13 AM EDT

Space shuttle Endeavour is officially on its way to the International Space Station on its STS-134 mission and final flight. Endeavour lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on time at 8:56 a.m. EDT, soaring through a few clouds, after a relatively smooth countdown.

"I can't thank the teams that got this vehicle ready to fly and for all the work they've done," said Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier referring to the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) heater issues and said, "The teams worked really hard to get through that, get it behind and to understand what the problem was -- and it was no problem to us at all during the count." 

"The teams stayed focused, and made this launch a success," Gerstenmaier added. "The mission in front of us is no easy mission, the EVAs (extra vehicular activities) are very demanding -- but it'll be exciting to see the AMS (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) get installed on the station and get some real research data for the ISS."

"We showed our determination to succeed on a very complex mission," said Michel Tognini, head of the European Astronaut Center and former ESA astronaut, "and this is the model of human exploration for the future."

Mike Moses apologized (in jest) about the view not being the best and the longest because of the cloud cover." But the data that we were looking at in the launch center was absolutely perfect," said Moses. "We had the clouds where we needed them, so we went."

There were a few minor problems, but they were managed and worked immediately, including the minor tile repair, reported Moses.

After every launch an award is given to one of the teams, according to Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach, and today's honor was given to the combined APU repair/test team. "It was an outstanding countdown, lots of pats on the back in the lobby of the LCC (launch control center) afterwards when we were eating our beans and corn bread (a traditional post-launch snack)," said Leinbach. "Endeavour's on orbit safely and it's going to perform a great mission and we'll see her back here on June 1."

"It's a great day here at Kennedy Space Center and for the Shuttle Program," added Leinbach.

Image above: Space shuttle Endeavour launches on the STS-134 mission to the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA 
The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori. 

During the 16-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. 

Trump says he's not running for president

 (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

 

By theGrio 12:50 PM on 05/16/2011

DAVID BAUDER,AP Television

NEW YORK (AP) -- After months of flirting with politics, Donald Trump said Monday he won't run for president, choosing to stick with hosting "The Celebrity Apprentice" over a bid for the Republican nomination.

The reality TV star and real estate mogul made his announcement at a Manhattan hotel asNBC, which airs his show, rolled out its fall lineup.

"I will not be running for president as much as I'd like to," Trump said.

Trump's office released a formal statement just as he was taking the stage. In it, a confident Trump said he felt he could win the Republican primary and beat President Barack Obama in the general election but had come to realize a presidential campaign could not be run half-heartedly.

"Ultimately, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector," Trump said.

Several Republicans are seeking the nomination in a race that lacks a clear front-runner. Among the top hopefuls are former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. The GOP is still waiting to hear whether Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin or Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann will get in the race.

Trump has floated the idea of a presidential candidacy in both 1988 and 2000 but claimed he was more serious than ever this time, citing the weak economy and the sense that the United States was in decline. Some public opinion polls showed him leading the slow-to-coalesce Republican field.

In the past few months, he delivered speeches to national GOP groups and traveled to early primary states like New Hampshire and Nevada. During that time, he reignited the so-called "birther" controversy by perpetuating falsehoods about Obama's birth place, insisting that questions were unanswered about whether the president was born in Hawaii. He amassed admiration from many on the far right who have insisted Obama was born overseas and, thus, wasn't eligible to serve as president.

Obama finally distributed his long-form birth certificate earlier this month, indirectly casting Trump as a carnival barker and the controversy as a sideshow. Trump took credit for the release even though it robbed his candidacy of its signature issue.

Obama retaliated days later in his monologue at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, where he poked fun at the birth certificate controversy and mocked Trump and his television show. A stone-faced Trump heard the barbs from both Obama and comedian Seth Meyers. A day later, NBC interrupted the airing of Trump's show with word of an Obama announcement -- within 45 minutes the president informed the nation and the world that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had been killed.

Whatever buzz over a Trump candidacy was left fully faded.

Trump would have brought to the race both celebrity and the no-holds-barred criticism of Obama that many Republicans are hungry for in a GOP nominee. But, as it has for months, Trump's participation also could have made the GOP nomination fight a less serious affair, seeming small by comparison to Obama and his presidency.

Trump is the second Republican in a matter of days to say no to a bid for the GOP nomination. Mike Huckabee announced Saturday that he wouldn't seek the presidency.

At the Hilton hotel in New York, NBC said that "The Celebrity Apprentice" would be coming back in midseason. But Bob Greenblatt, the head of NBC entertainment, said the only mystery would be whether Trump was host.

Trump said the show has made a lot of money for charity and that he wanted to continue as host.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

The right wants to remind America Obama is black

 

By Anthony Jerrod 9:49 AM on 05/12/2011

In this Dec. 3, 2009 file photo, President Barack Obama greets rapper Common at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

"President Obama goes back to his radical roots again and again and again."

This recent statement by Fox News host Sean Hannity initially had me alarmed. Immediately, my mind began to wonder if President Obama had somehow reconnected with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers or Father Michael Pfleger.

To my utter amazement, I later discovered that Hannity's exaggerated rants were targeted at Common -- arguably, one of the most positive and intellectually astute lyricists in the hip-hop industry for over a decade, as evidenced by a plethora of empowering and uplifting songs such as "The Light," "Come Close," "Love Is," "Retrospect for Life" and "I Have A Dream". If one hadwatched Hannity and Karl Rove and did not know about Common and his constructive corpus of songs and amazing philanthropic activities, one could possibly surmise that first lady Michelle Obama had invited an extremely controversial figure to recite poetry at the White House.

Was it fair for Rove to describe Common as a "thug", a misogynist and a reprehensible promoter of killing police officers and President Bush? Certainly, Common's performance during last night's poetry event and his recent work with Sesame Street does not exemplify such a person. And, why didn't Rove mention the fact that the late Eazy-E, who frequently rapped about violence ("F**k Tha Police") during his days with N.W.A., attended and contributed to a luncheon hosted by former President George H.W. Bush to benefit the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle in March 1991?

WATCH 'THE LAST WORD' COVERAGE OF THE COMMON CONTROVERSY:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sadly enough, as then Senator Obama described in 2008 during his campaign, some conservatives will try almost anything to paint him as "different" and "other." Or, to be more pointed, there were going to be right-wing propagandists who would attempt to remind America that he was a black candidate. Now, as the 2012 campaign season begins, there are already at least a handful of Republican strategists who are treading down the same path to create fear and xenophobia of blackness throughout the country in the hopes of preventing President Obama's re-election.

Over the past two weeks, President Obama's momentum has made it extremely tough for the Republican presidential candidates. The release of his long-form birth certificate that immediately squashed the birther debate, the killing of Osama bin Laden and the recent AP-GfK poll that denoted a 60 percent approval rating are unequivocally worrisome for his conservative opponents.

These recent accomplishments are additions to the already robust resume of President Obama that includes the health care reform bill, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the repeal of the military's ban on gays and lesbians, the withdrawal of combat troops out of Iraq, the historicWall Street reform bill, the White House initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the appointments of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court and over 200 more legislative achievements.

Whether it's swiftly responding to disasters around the country, re-igniting debate and discourse about comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act, or targeting oil subsidies, President Obama appears to be moving too fast and successfully for GOP strategists, and they seem to be clearly running out of issues to attack the president on.

Without equivocation, Obama still has various areas in which significant improvement is needed such as the deficit and debt ceiling, ongoing Israel and Palestine conflict, criminal justice reform, immigration reform and clean energy. These major items will require bipartisanship and concrete, effective plans and proposals from both chambers and sides of the aisle.

To criticize Obama on substantive and detailed components of proposed and existing public policies is fair game, in most cases. But, to resort to calling Common names, labeling an artist like Jill Scott a racist because she purportedly disapproved of an interracial relationship in anEssence article, demanding the release of bin Laden's death photo, focusing on first lady Michelle Obama or doing the "dougie," or asking for the president's college transcripts is truly sophomoric and opprobrious. Hopefully, the 2012 presidential campaign season will be marked by civil discourse and debate on the real issues.

The budget debate we all deserve

Paul Ryan (R-WI). (Jason Reed/Reuters)

By Paul Ryan

May 16, 2011

Despite Washington coming to grips with the fact that the debt threat is real, policymakers still are not having the debate Americans deserve.

The talk is too often restricted to "shared sacrifice." This sets up a debate where we are really just arguing over whom to hurt and how best to manage the decline of our nation. It is a framework that accepts permanently higher taxes and bureaucratically determined access to health care as givens.

A better name for this approach is "shared scarcity." It represents a deeply pessimistic vision for the future of this country — one that would lead us to a diminished future.

The House-passed budget — "The Path to Prosperity" — offers an alternative vision. It is rooted in the recognition that spending discipline and economic growth are the keys to balancing the federal budget.

In a recent speech he gave in response to the House budget,President Barack Obama outlined his approach to addressing our fiscal imbalance. It begins with trillions of dollars in higher taxes and relies on a plan to control costs inMedicare: A board of 15 unelected bureaucrats would be given more power to deeply ration Medicare spending in ways that would disrupt the lives of those in retirement, leading to waiting lists and denied care for today's seniors.

By contrast, the House-passed budget gets health care spending under control by empowering Americans to fight back against skyrocketing costs. Our budget makes no changes for those in or near retirement, and offers future generations a strengthened Medicare program they can count on, with guaranteed coverage options, less help for the wealthy, and more help for the poor and the sick.

There is widespread, bipartisan agreement that the open-ended, fee-for-service structure of Medicare is a key driver of health-care cost inflation. Medicare is not the train being pulled along by the engine of rising costs. Medicare is the engine — and the rest of us are getting taken for a ride.

The disagreement isn't really about the problem — it's about the solution to controlling costs. Our budget would achieve this by letting seniors act as value-conscious consumers in a transparent and competitive market. Our plan is to give seniors the power to deny business to inefficient health care providers. The Obama plan is to give government the power to deny health care to seniors.

The House-passed budget also rejects the president's call for permanently higher taxes. Instead, it calls for scaling back or eliminating loopholes and carve-outs in the tax code that are distorting economic incentives. It does this, not to raise taxes, but to create space for lower rates to provide incentives for businesses to create jobs in America.

By contrast, the president says he wants to eliminate deductions, but he also wants to raise rates, including raising the top rate to 44.8 percent. That would amount to a $1.5 trillion tax hike on families and job creators.

The president says that only the richest people in America would be affected by his plan. Class warfare may or may not be clever politics, but it is terrible economics. Redistributing wealth never creates more of it, and sowing class envy makes America weaker, not stronger. Playing one group against another only distracts us from the true sources of inequity in this country — corporate welfare that enriches the powerful and empty promises that betray the powerless.

Too many in Washington remain fixated on the next election, at the expense of the next generation. But there is a hidden cost to the shared scarcity mentality — a cost measured in lost prosperity and lost freedom.

We face a choice between two futures. We can continue to go down the path toward shared scarcity, or we can choose the path of renewed prosperity.

But the comeback starts by putting aside class warfare and focusing on what we can achieve together.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairs the House Budget Committee. He authored "The Path to Prosperity."

Playlist| Killing Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the most devastating attack on U.S. soil, was finally killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan -- nearly 10 years after the attacks of 9/11.
In this special documentary, the Discovery Channel takes you behind closed doors with the elite forces that brought down Osama Bin Laden.
Experts reveal how the Navy Seal team penetrated the compound's defenses and made contact with Osama bin Laden inside
Special operations experts report how detailed planning and skillful flying had to protect the mission -- code-named Operation Neptune Spear -- from Pakistani radar  

9/11-LINKED MISCARRIAGES SUGGEST BOYS MORE VULNERABLE TO STRESS

The stress of 9/11 may have increased the number of miscarriages among women carrying male babies.

By Emily Sohn 
Tue May 25, 2010 09:29 AM ET

 

THE GIST
The stress of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 caused a disproportionate number of miscarriages among women carrying male babies.
Societal stress can affect the health of people just as much as individual life stress can.
Males are more vulnerable to the negative health effects of stress in the womb.

enlarge

After 9/11 there was a disproportionate number of miscarriages among women carrying male babies. Click to enlarge this image. 
iStockPhoto

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there was a small but real rise in the number of miscarriages across the country -- especially for women who were pregnant with boys.

The finding adds to evidence that boys are more vulnerable to stress than girls while in the womb. The study also affirms that the tragic events of 9/11 deeply affected people far beyond the limits of New York City.

"The stress of a mother affects the fetus, and it's not just these individual stressors like whether you had a divorce or lost your job, but also these ambient stressors, like the economy and September 11," said Tim Bruckner, a population health researcher at the University of California, Irvine. "The effects resonated across the entire society. We were essentially bereaving what we saw on TV."

In the United States an average of 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. But in times of stress, like after natural disasters or economic collapse, studies have shown that the ratio drops, and fewer boys are born than expected. So far, it hasn't been clear why.

One theory is that stress harms sperm that bear Y-chromosomes. It could also be that people simply have less sex during stressful times, which might favor girls. Or perhaps something happens during pregnancy to affect the birth ratio.

Bruckner and colleagues collected data from around the country about miscarriages that happened after 20 weeks of pregnancy between 1996 and 2002. Most miscarriages happen before 20 weeks, but those aren't usually recorded, and the gender of the baby is rarely known.

The numbers showed a three percent increase in the number of male babies that miscarried after 9/11, the researchers reported in the journal BMC Public Health.Over the next few months, the ratio of boys born compared to girls dropped accordingly. Based on research in guinea pigs and other animals, scientists suspect that exposure to stress hormones kills more male fetuses than females.

"This is an unusually rigorous and careful demonstration of something that I think is intrinsically interesting," said Robert Trivers, an evolutionary biologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

"It is not at all obvious that a traumatic, single-day event to which people are personally unconnected is something that would reverberate all across the United States inside mother's wombs, claiming an extra set of males," he said. "Yet their evidence is very compelling that exactly that happened."

The tendency of an extremely anxious woman to miscarry male babies might have developed in our ancestors as a way to maximize the number of grandchildren she would eventually have, Bruckner said.

When times were flush and food plentiful, the theory goes, women could pour more resources into their developing sons, boosting the chances that they would go on to become alpha males. In many mammals, including red deer, alpha males are more likely to find mates and have babies.

If conditions turned sour during a pregnancy, on the other hand, it might be best for a woman to miscarry a male baby and try again next year when life is less stressful.

The new study doesn't offer any obvious advice to pregnant women about how to avoid miscarriages, Bruckner said. Instead, it highlights one of the ways that collective stress can impact the health of our nation at its core.