ISS – praag.org

Russia plans own space station

Russia announced plans Tuesday evening to continue operating the International Space Station until 2024 — but afterwards, it will take its modules away to form its own space station.

The ISS, which was assembled in orbit between 1998 and 2011, is made up mainly of modules owned by NASA and Roscosmos (the Russian space agency), along with some owned by Japan and Europe. Original plans called for it to be retired by 2020, but in January 2014, President Obama announced plans to extend its mission to 2024, and possibly to 2028.

That, however, depended on Russia’s cooperation, because under the station’s current configuration, modules from both countries are needed to operate it. Last May, due to tensions from economic sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine, Russia threatened to pull out of the project in 2020.

The new announcement ensures that ISS will live on until 2024 — but puts the future of US-Russia cooperation in space in doubt.

Since 1975, when the US Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecrafts linked up in orbit, the US and Russia have worked together in space. And recently, as political tensions between the two countries have grown, space has remained one of few areas of cooperation.

If Russia goes through with this plan, though, the era of space cooperation might be over. NASA currently relies on Russia to ferry its astronauts to the ISS, but by 2017, it’s hoping that private American companies (SpaceX and Boeing) will be able to carry out these missions instead. Russia, meanwhile, says it plans to use several of its ISS modules to assemble its own, new space station, possibly as a precursor for human missions to the moon. NASA’s longer-term plans for crewed exploration are uncertain, but no proposals involve collaboration with Russia.

The good news is that in the short term, the complex, expensive ISS will continue to be used for research (helping scientists figure out, for instance, how to keep humans healthy in space) instead of being thrown away prematurely for political reasons. But the bad news for space exploration as a whole is that the world’s two most capable space programs might soon be competing with each other, instead of working together.

Source: Vox

Toy tiger cub joins space ride

Beloved by generations of Russian children, Goodnight Little Ones is the longest-running children’s show in the world and has featured virtually the same evening format since it started in 1964.

A new addition to the show will be Mur to join Khryusha, a piglet (introduced in 1970), Stepashka, a hare (introduced the same year), Philya, a dog, introduced in 1968, Karkusha, a crow, introduced in 1982, and Mishutka, a bear, introduced in 2002.

Mur is a tiger cub.

‘The ideas were discussed with children and their parents, and the opinion of psychologists was asked. It is important that the little TV viewers should take a fancy to the new personage because it is coming to the TV show for good.’

He explained: ‘The idea to take an Amur tiger cub ‘on the staff’ came into our mind after an interview with President Putin, who told of his active support of several ecological programmes to protect rare animal species on the verge of extinction.

He said that these animals are our national treasure and that they need protection.

He admitted that the tiger cub proposal initially ‘sounded a bit surprising’ but ‘we looked carefully at this idea, we realized it was a bingo!’

A new Soyuz crew will take the plushy toy tiger cub to the International Space Station, ISS, as part of an action to call public attention to rare species.

The action has been organized by the Russian Space Agency Roskosmos and two non-profit organizations – the Amur Tiger and the Far Eastern Leopards centers.

A new ISS crew whose composition was approved by a state commission earlier on Wednesday is to take off from Baikonur on September 26. For the first time in ten years, the crew will comprise a woman – Elena Serova. The ISS expedition will last for 168 days.

“On the eve of the International Tiger Day, Roskosmos has decided to support an environmental action designed to call public attention to rare species. The Amur tiger cub named Mur and a far eastern leopard will fly to the International Space Station,” Yuri Lonchakov, the head of the space training center, said.

In addition to that, the crew, comprising Alexander Samokutayev, Elena Serova and Barry Wilmore, will take a flask with water taken from the River Kazanka in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, in honor of the 16th FINA World Championship in aquatics to be hosted by Kazan in 2015.

The crew of Maxim Surayev which the new ISS expedition in going to replace will return the flask with water back to Earth. The ‘space’ water will later be handed over to a museum.

We need monthly crime stats: ISS

National police statistics should be released once a month, and not when they are six months out of date, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) said on Thursday.

“Police update crime statistics every 24-hours. We only get it after it’s been outdated,” said Gareth Newham, head of governance, crime and justice at the ISS.

“If you could get it once a month… communities could see what’s happening in their neighbourhoods and start acting without the help of police.”

He said this would take a “massive burden” away from the police.

“Right now, people have no clue what’s happening in their areas.”

Newham said the decision not to release the statistics once a month was a political decision.

He said Cabinet had changed the previous policy from once every quarter to yearly. – Sapa

SA needs hate crime legislation

South Africa needs special legislation for all forms of hate crimes, a conference on crime in Sandton heard on Thursday.

“It would be helpful to have hate crime legislation because it would focus the police minds when investigating, prosecutors when prosecuting, judges when passing sentences,” said Kerry Williams, partner at law firm Webber Wentzel.

“And the legislature could give some guidance in how to handle these crimes.”

Williams told the conference on crime reduction that the perpetrators of hate crimes could be prosecuted using common law, and judges could recognise the aspect of hate when passing judgment on these cases.

She said legislation would give added focus and stipulate minimum sentences for hate crimes.

In hate crimes, the perpetrator selects his or her victim for some discriminatory reason such as race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation.

Juan Nel, director of the centre for applied psychology at Unisa, said hate crimes were not recognised in South Africa.

“Unless they become a recognised crime category, they can’t be recorded at police station level.

“Without it being recorded as such, it is very difficult to get a sense of what the prevalence would be.

“Once we have it as a recorded category… you can get a sense as to how often it happens, to whom it happens and where it happens.”

He said recording the crime would also help research efforts aimed at understanding the nature and impact of the crimes.

Nel said the priority that was put on hate crimes was not based on prevalence, but their impact.

“We believe it extends beyond the individual, it also affects the community. It also about the psychological impact that it has: the fear, the anger that it might create, and sometimes it has [a] ripple effect.”

He said the Hate Crimes Working Group, in partnership with other civic organisations, had identified 450 hate crimes in five provinces since 2005.

These were KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Western Cape, Limpopo and Eastern Cape.

The crimes consisted of 150 lesbian gay bisexual trans-gender intersex (LGBTI) cases, 150 foreign national cases and 150 other cases.

The conference was hosted by the Institute For Security Studies and would end on Friday. – Sapa