Up To 750 Meteors An Hour Expected This Saturday

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Draconid Meteor Shower On Saturday May Be Hard To See

By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Heads-up, meteor fans.

As many as 750 meteors an hour are expected Saturday, as Earth travels through streams of dust and ice from Comet Giacobini-Zinner. The comet passes through the inner solar system every seven years.

But the timing for viewing them in the United States is terrible. These Draconid meteors are expected to peak between 3 and 5 p.m. EDT, so the sun will obscure everything.

NASA space weatherman Bill Cooke suggests popping outside and taking a look once it's dark. You might get lucky if forecasters' timing is off.

And while the meteors will be falling during nighttime in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, a nearly full moon is expected to dull the spectacle there.

"The moon sucks. It's messed up meteor showers this year. Next year will be better," said Cooke, team leader of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

It just so happens that this year's meteor showers are falling at or near the time of full moons.

Because the Draconids move relatively slowly – 12 miles per second – they're faint and the moonlight "really tends to wash them out," Cooke said in a phone interview.

The Draconids get their name from the constellation Draco, the Dragon.

In 1933 and 1946, the Draconid outbursts were major – observers reported an astounding rate of 20,000 shooting stars an hour. An Irish astronomer described the 1933 episode like a flurry of snowflakes.

The next Draconid outburst after this one will be in 2018.

If you miss this weekend's Draconids, you can catch the Orionids on Oct. 22 – remnants from Halley's Comet, expected to number 20 meteors an hour.

Then there are the Leonids in mid-November – with as many as 100 meteors an hour.

"Unfortunately, the moon will interfere with them as well," Cooke said. "We just don't have any good luck, moonwise, this year." Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

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Decision in farm dispute prevents families from drinking milk from their own cows

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UDDERLY RIDICULOUS

Judge: Americans have no right to choose food

Decision in farm dispute prevents families from drinking milk from their own cows

By Bob Unruh

A Wisconsin judge has decided – in a fight over families' access to milk from cows they own – that Americans "do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow."

The ruling comes from Circuit Court Judge Patrick J. Fiedler in a court battle involving a number of families who owned their own cows, but boarded them on a single farm.

The judge said the arrangement is a "dairy farm" and, therefore, is subject to the rules and regulations of the state of Wisconsin.

"It's always a surprise when a judge says you don't have the fundamental right to consume the foods of your choice," said Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which worked on the case on behalf of the farmers and the owners of the milk-producing cows.

The judge's original ruling came in a consolidation of two cases that presented similar situations: Cows being maintained and milked on farms for the benefit of non-resident owners. He refused to grant a summary judgment declaring such arrangements legitimate, deciding instead to favor the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, which opposed them.

"Plaintiffs argue that they have a fundamental right to possess, use and enjoy their property and therefore have a fundamental right to own a cow, or a heard (sic) of cows, and to use their cow(s) in a manner that does not cause harm to third parties. They argue that they have a fundamental right to privacy to consume the food of their choice for themselves and their families and therefore have a fundamental right to consume unpasteurized milk from their cows," the judge wrote.

Bunk, he concluded.

"They do not simply own a cow that they board at a farm. Instead, plaintiffs operate a dairy farm. If plaintiffs want to continue to operate their dairy farm then they must do so in a way that complies with the laws of Wisconsin."

He cited an earlier consent decree involving one of the farm locations, which had been accused of being the source of a "Campylobachter jejuni infection" and said there are state reasons to require standards and licenses.

Identifying the cases as the "Grassway plaintiffs" and the "Zinniker plaintiffs," the judge said both were in violation of state rules and regulations.

It was, however, when the plaintiffs petitioned the judge for a "clarification" of his order that he let fly his judicial temperament.

"The court denied plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, which means the following:

"(1) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a diary (sic) herd; "(2) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow; "(3) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer; "(4) no, the Zinniker plaintiffs' private contract does not fall outside the scope of the state's police power; "(5) no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice; and "(6) no, the DATCP did not act in an ultra vires manner because it had jurisdiction to regulate the Zinniker plaintiffs' conduct."

"It is clear from their motion to clarify that the plaintiffs still fail to recognize that they are not merely attempting to enforce their 'right' to own a cow and board it at a farm. Instead, plaintiffs operate a dairy farm," he wrote.

Kennedy said the ruling is outlandish.

"Here you have a situation where a group of people, a couple of individuals, boarded their cows which they wholly owned, with Zinniker farms, and paid them a fee for the boarding."

He continued, "The judge said people have no fundamental right to acquire, possess and use your own property."

The dispute is part of a larger battle going on between private interests and state and federal regulators over just exactly who makes the decision on the difference between a privately held asset and a commercial producer.

The Los Angeles Times recently profiled a case in which prosecutors had arrested the owner of a health food market and two others on charges of allegedly illegally producing unpasteurized dairy products.

The arrests of James Cecil Stewart, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch just a few weeks ago advanced the government's crackdown on the sale of so-called raw dairy products.

But Fiedler's arguments weren't unique.

Attorneys for the federal government have argued in a lawsuit still pending in federal court in Iowa that individuals have no "fundamental right" to obtain their food of choice.

The brief was filed early in 2010 in support of a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ban on the interstate sale of raw milk.

"There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds," states the document signed by U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose, assistant Martha Fagg and Roger Gural, trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish," the government has argued.

WND has reported several times on fed crackdowns on producers of raw milk for friends and neighbors, including when agents arrived to inspect a private property belonging to Dan Allgyer in Pennsylvania at 5 a.m.

The Iowa case alleges the federal restrictions on raw milk are a violation of the U.S. Constitution, according to a report at Natural News.

The federal attorneys want the case dismissed.

"The interest claimed by plaintiffs could be framed more narrowly as a right to 'provide themselves and their families with the foods of their own choice,'" the government document states. But the attorneys say that right doesn't exist.

"The FDA essentially believes that nobody has the right to choose what to eat or drink," said the Natural News site, which explains it covers topics that allow individuals to make positive changes in their health, environmental sensitivity and consumer choices.

"You are only 'allowed' to eat or drink what the FDA gives you permission to. There is no inherent right or God-given right to consume any foods from nature without the FDA's consent."

The Natural News report continued, "The state, in other words, may override your food decisions and deny you free access to the foods and beverages you wish to consume. And the state may do this for completely unscientific reasons – even just political reasons – all at their whim."

The report blames the aggressive campaign against raw milk on large commercial dairy interests, "because it threatens the commercial milk business."

The reason cannot be safety, the report said, since a report from the Weston A. Price Foundation revealed that from 1980 to 2005 there were 10 times more illnesses from pasteurized milk than from raw milk.

The federal government attorneys say the FDA's goal is to prevent disease, and that's why the "ban on the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk" was adopted.

The attorneys conceded that states ordinarily are expected to regulate intrastate activity but noted, "it is within HHS's authority … to institute an intrastate ban as well."

Natural News reported the ban could be seen as violating the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which leaves to states all powers not specifically designated in the Constitution for the federal body. Read more at www.wnd.com

 

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Anti-Christ

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Anti-Christ Read more at inquisitionnews.blogspot.com

 

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Anti-Christ

Alien vs Predator

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Alien vs Predator

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Alien vs Predator

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By Naureen Khan



Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who has consistently opposed U.S. military engagement overseas, said Tuesday that the Obama administration's killing of a U.S.-born radical cleric in Yemen was an impeachable offense and that "we have crossed that barrier from republic to dictatorship."



Speaking to an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the libertarian Texas congressman also expressed sympathy for the budding Wall Street protest movement.



He harshly criticized Obama for approving last week's predator drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a prominent al Qaeda figure linked by U.S. intelligence agencies to two unsuccessful attacks on U.S.-bound airplanes. Samir Kahn, a second American killed in the attack, was the editor of the online al Qaeda magazine "Inspire." Paul suggested the government could begin killing American journalists with impunity.



"Can you imagine being put on a list because you're a threat?" Paul told a crowd of 60 journalists and their guests at a luncheon. "What's going to happen when they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat? ... This is the way this works. It's incrementalism."



"We have crossed that barrier from republic to dictatorship, to tyranny to empire," he said. "He can now assassinate people without due process? What is going on with this country? But you ask me if it's an impeachable offense, and it is! Just ignoring the Fifth Amendment and assassinating American citizens without due process. They won't even tell us what the rules are! Oh, but he's a threat! Can you imagine being put on a list because you're a threat? What's going to happen when they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat? Or a professor becomes a threat?"



Paul also said he shares the frustration of the protesters who recently occupied streets in the Wall Street section of New York City, and said he believes the demonstrations are rooted in a host of economic woes, including corporate decisions to relocate American jobs overseas.



"Eventually our jobs will deploy overseas and the pie would shrink, and there would be an aggressive attitude to get a piece of the pie that's no longer there," he said. "I think civil disobedience, if everyone knows exactly what they're doing, is a legitimate effort. It's been done in this country for many grievances and some people end up going to jail for this. ... The solution is to get a healthy economy back."

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Ron Paul Says Obama Has Committed an Impeachable Offense

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Rep. Ron Paul expanded on his comments that the killing of a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist is an impeachable offense.

Paul, appearing this afternoon on Fox News with Megyn Kelly, denied that he directly raised the possibility, but said he was merely responding to a question.

He added that the precedent of killing an American citizen without a trial is “very serious.”

ABC affiliate WMUR reports that Paul was asked by a University of New Hampshire student Monday how Paul would hold Obama accountable for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.

Paul said impeachment would be a possibility, but there should be an investigation that holds Obama responsible.

Paul’s comments on Monday upped the ante on a series of pointed remarks aimed at President Obama over the killing of al-Awlaki.

Last Friday he called the strike “sad” and added that it’s “not a good way to deal with our problems.”

“If the American people accept this blindly and casually –  have a precedent of an American president assassinating people who he thinks are bad. I think it that’s sad,” he said.

Then in an op-ed piece published Sunday in the New York Daily News, Paul said “as president, I would have arrested Awlaki, brought him to the U.S., tried him and pushed for the stiffest punishment allowed by law.”

Paul wrote that he believes in the rule of law and the killing of al-Awlaki is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional acts by President Obama that includes military action in Libya and health care reform. Read more at abcnews.go.com

 

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Vets For Peace Votes to Impeach Obama for War Crimes

by JOHN V. WALSH

Veterans for Peace (VFP), a progressive organization if ever there was one, took the courageous step of voting for the “impeachment of President Barack H. Obama for war crimes” at its annual national convention in Portland Oregon in August.  The resolution, which called on Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings, passed with a majority vote.

The resolution sounds the death knell for the view that advocates of Obama’s impeachment are no more than right wing, racist Birthers.

A call for impeachment, whatever the prospects for success, makes clear that the antiwar community regards the President as a criminal – whether that President is Bush or Obama.  And it puts a stop to the nasty tactic of shutting up impeachment advocates by calling them racists.

The impeachment resolution is modeled on another that VFP passed some years ago calling for impeachment of Bush. The anti-Obama resolution merits reading in full and is included below. It has telling additions to the one targeting Bush.  It opens thus:  “Whereas, President Obama, on 19 March 2011, committed a criminal act by ordering the U.S. military to war in Libya without first obtaining the consent of the U.S. Congress in a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.”  Bush told lies to get us into war.  Such is his arrogance that Obama, acting in the Democratic tradition of Harry S. Truman in the Korean war, did not even bother to lie.  He simply went ahead and trampled on the Constitution without pretense.

The seventh in the list of reasons for impeachment is a tight summary: “Whereas, millions upon millions of Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Somali, and Libyan civilians have been maimed, poisoned, displaced from their homes, and killed in a direct result of ongoing, illegal acts of war by the United States.”

It concludes, “Therefore Be It Resolved that Veterans For Peace call on the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Barack H. Obama for failure to uphold his sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies foreign and domestic, and for his commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, obstruction of justice and the violation of numerous national and international laws, treaties and conventions.”

This victory of the VFP rank and file who submitted the resolutions did not come easily.  It took three years. The first such resolution was written shortly after Obama took office, on his fourth day ordering Hellfire missiles to strike Pakistan, killing dozens of civilians including three children.  That prompted Tom Santoni of the Central FL VFP chapter to write an impeachment resolution.  It was taken up at the national convention the following August and was supported by the admirable Adam Kokesh who was at a meeting next door of VFP’s sister organization, Iraq Veterans Against the War.  But the VFP leadership, that is the Board, voted against it, thus requiring a two-thirds vote of the membership.

This bit of gate keeping worked, and the resolution failed at the August convention.  Santoni quit in disgust, a big loss to VFP.  The Central Florida chapter tried again in 2010 under the leaderhship of its co-chair Phil Restino.  This time Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan endorsed the resolution, but again it failed.  Finally, this year the Central FL chapter once again submitted the resolution and this time the board did not vote it down! The unstoppable Restino reached out to all 128 VFP chapters urging support and passage.  And spontaneously Jesse Perrier of Boston’s Smedley Butler chapter of VFP arose and gave an impassioned speech that brought down the house and won the day.  The resolution passed.

Now what about the implementation?  The Impeach Bush resolution was pushed aggressively in 2005 running up to the 2006 election when Democrats were running on the promise of impeachment, on which they promptly reneged, most notoriously John Conyers, the poster Congressperson for impeachment.   Mike Ferner, at the time executive director of VFP, made an indignant Bush-bashing speech for impeachment in front of the White House.  You can view it   here  in all its glory.  A hard copy letter with the signature of the VFP president was mailed to each member of the House calling for impeachment.

How about the present resolution?  Mike Ferner opposed it in the floor debate at the August convention. There has been no rally and none is planned – not in front of the White House or anywhere else.  This time a fax of the resolution has been sent to the House members without signature of the President.  Currently the Central FL chapter is trying to send snail mail letters on its own to every House member once it gets the signature of the president.

Unfortunately this story can be repeated in different ways in a variety of “progressive” organizations with leadership more loyal to Dems than to antiwar principle.  This writer has witnessed it himself in organizations like PSR and United for Justice and Peace.  But the ground is shifting, and much to its credit VFP has led the way.

John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com.  He thanks Phil Restino, co-chair of Central Florida Vets for Peace and Jesse Perrier of the Smedley Butler Brigade of Vets for Peace in Boston for their help.  He attempted twice to reach a voice against the resolution but received no reply.

***

IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT BARACK H. OBAMA FOR WAR CRIMES Whereas, Barack H. Obama is Commander In Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and the head of the Executive Branch of the United States government, and

Whereas, President Obama, on 19 March 2011, committed a criminal act by ordering the U.S. military to war in Libya without first obtaining the consent of the U.S. Congress in a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, and

Whereas, the illegal U.S. invasion, bombing and occupation of Iraq initiated by the Bush administration continues under the Obama administration; and

Whereas, the U.S. government is currently engaged in illegal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and President Obama pledged to increase the number of military personnel and tax dollars spent on the these wars, and

Whereas, the U.S. military used and continues to use depleted uranium munitions, cluster bombs and white phosphorous in densely populated areas in violation of U.S. laws and international laws and treaties prohibiting the indiscriminate killing of civilians; and,

Whereas, the Geneva Conventions specifically prohibit the use of especially injurious weapons and materials causing unnecessary harm that remain active and lethal after battle, and over large areas of land, and

Whereas, large numbers of babies born in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer life-long illness and deformity like severe disfigurements and brain damage, Down’s syndrome, and weak hearts doctors state are caused by the U.S. military’s massive and widespread use of toxic and radioactive materials, and

Whereas, millions upon millions of Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Somali, and Libyan civilians have been maimed, poisoned, displaced from their homes, and killed in a direct result of ongoing, illegal acts of war by the United States, and

Whereas, illegal, immoral and counterproductive detainee torture and brutalization at the hands of the U.S. military’s Immediate Reaction Force continue at Guantanamo under the Obama administration and in particular, the torture of Pfc. Bradley Manning at Quantico, Virginia, and

Whereas, President Obama is an accessory after the fact in obstructing justice by failing to order the Department of Justice to initiate investigations into numerous and blatant U.S. war crimes committed by the Bush administration, for which it is manifestly accountable under the law, and

Whereas, millions of Americans, including Veterans For Peace and Prosecute Them Now, supported the impeachment of Bush/Cheney for the same war crimes that are being committed now by Obama in violation of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. federal laws, the United Nations Charter, the Hague Convention, the Geneva Conventions, The United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter, and

Whereas, Veterans For Peace and Prosecute Them Now are committed to the stated mission to restrain our government from intervening overtly and covertly in the internal affairs of other nations, to seek justice for veterans and victims of war, to increase public awareness of the exact costs of war, and to abolish war as an instrument of national policy;

Therefore Be It Resolved that Veterans For Peace call on the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Barack H. Obama for failure to uphold his sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies foreign and domestic, and for his commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, obstruction of justice and the violation of numerous national and international laws, treaties and conventions.

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Secret panel can put Americans on "kill list'

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama's toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki's killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.

In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush's expansive use of executive power in his "war on terrorism," is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.

Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder.

Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a citizen without due process.

Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing.

The process involves "going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president, but the National Security Council does the investigation, they have lawyers, they review, they look at the situation, you have input from the military, and also, we make sure that we follow international law," Ruppersberger said.

LAWYERS CONSULTED

Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described.

They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC "principals," meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.

The officials insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

They confirmed that lawyers, including those in the Justice Department, were consulted before Awlaki's name was added to the target list.

Two principal legal theories were advanced, an official said: first, that the actions were permitted by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001; and they are permitted under international law if a country is defending itself.

Several officials said that when Awlaki became the first American put on the target list, Obama was not required personally to approve the targeting of a person. But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals' decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.

A former official said one of the reasons for making senior officials principally responsible for nominating Americans for the target list was to "protect" the president.

Officials confirmed that a second American, Samir Khan, was killed in the drone attack that killed Awlaki. Khan had served as editor of Inspire, a glossy English-language magazine used by AQAP as a propaganda and recruitment vehicle.

But rather than being specifically targeted by drone operators, Khan was in the wrong place at the wrong time, officials said. Ruppersberger appeared to confirm that, saying Khan's death was "collateral," meaning he was not an intentional target of the drone strike.

When the name of a foreign, rather than American, militant is added to targeting lists, the decision is made within the intelligence community and normally does not require approval by high-level NSC officials.

'FROM INSPIRATIONAL TO OPERATIONAL'

Officials said Awlaki, whose fierce sermons were widely circulated on English-language militant websites, was targeted because Washington accumulated information his role in AQAP had gone "from inspirational to operational." That meant that instead of just propagandizing in favor of al Qaeda objectives, Awlaki allegedly began to participate directly in plots against American targets.

"Let me underscore, Awlaki is no mere messenger but someone integrally involved in lethal terrorist activities," Daniel Benjamin, top counterterrorism official at the State Department, warned last spring.

The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.

But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki's hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.

For instance, one plot in which authorities have said Awlaki was involved Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underpants.

There is no doubt Abdulmutallab was an admirer or follower of Awlaki, since he admitted that to U.S. investigators. When he appeared in a Detroit courtroom earlier this week for the start of his trial on bomb-plot charges, he proclaimed, "Anwar is alive."

But at the time the White House was considering putting Awlaki on the U.S. target list, intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial. Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab.

Awlaki was also implicated in a case in which a British Airways employee was imprisoned for plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound plane. E-mails retrieved by authorities from the employee's computer showed what an investigator described as " operational contact" between Britain and Yemen.

Authorities believe the contacts were mainly between the U.K.-based suspect and his brother. But there was a strong suspicion Awlaki was at the brother's side when the messages were dispatched. British media reported that in one message, the person on the Yemeni end supposedly said, "Our highest priority is the US ... With the people you have, is it possible to get a package or a person with a package on board a flight heading to the US?"

U.S. officials contrast intelligence suggesting Awlaki's involvement in specific plots with the activities of Adam Gadahn, an American citizen who became a principal English-language propagandist for the core al Qaeda network formerly led by Osama bin Laden.

While Gadahn appeared in angry videos calling for attacks on the United States, officials said he had not been specifically targeted for capture or killing by U.S. forces because he was regarded as a loudmouth not directly involved in plotting attacks. Read more at www.reuters.com

 

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Secret Mission of Air Force's X-37B Robot Space Plane May Go Into Overtime

by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center image shows on-orbit functions for the reusable X-37 space plane, now under the wing of the U.S. Air Force. CREDIT: NASA/MSFC View full size image

After nearly seven months of flight, the U.S. Air Force's latest X-37 robotic space plane is nearing a milestone in its secret mission in Earth orbit as it chalks up mileage and operational experience.

As of last week, the reusable X-37B space plane had been in orbit for more than 206 days, two months shy of its 270-day mission design lifetime. The spacecraft, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, launched on its clandestine mission on March 5 from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The space plane is the second X-37B spacecraft built for the Air Force by Boeing's Phantom Works and carries the name Orbital Test Vehicle 2, or OTV-2.

The X-37B  — like the now-retired NASA space shuttles — is capable of returning experiments to Earth for further inspection and analysis, as well as re-flight of equipment. [Photos: Air Force's 2nd Secret X-37B Mission]

Extended flight possible

"On-orbit experimentation is continuing, though we cannot predict accurately when that will be complete," said Air Force Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37 systems program director. “We are learning new things about the vehicle every day, which makes the mission a very dynamic process."

McIntyre told SPACE.com  that X-37B controllers initially planned a nine-month mission "but will try to extend it as circumstances allow." Doing so would provide program officials with additional experimentation opportunities "and allow us to extract the maximum value out of the mission," he said. [Infographic: Inside the X-37B Space Plane]

The X-37B is being operated under the direction of Air Force Space Command's 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron, a space control unit located at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.

These hush-hush missions fall under the auspices of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

This SPACE.com graphic takes a look inside the X-37B space plane and its Atlas 5 rocket. CREDIT: Karl Tate, SPACE.com View full size image

Mystery mission

The X-37B spacecraft is about 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 15 feet (4.5 meters) wide. It has a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed. Thanks to a deployable solar array power system, the vehicle can fly a mission for up to 270 days, project officials have said in the past.

What exactly the vehicle does while circling the Earth is a mystery, since the spacecraft's cargo is consistently classified. Payloads may well involve high-tech testing of photoreconnaissance gear, but other hardware for intelligence-gathering could be onboard.

The first flight of an X-37B space plane, in 2010,  entailed a mission that lasted 225 days. The spacecraft was lofted on April 22 and landed on Dec. 3, gliding onto a specially prepared runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

When this second X-37B mission draws to a close, a "do-it-itself" guided entry and wheels-down runway landing and similar to the end of the first mission are expected at Vandenberg Air Force Base, with neighboring Edwards Air Force Base as an alternate site.

If the incoming space plane strays off its auto-pilot trajectory zooming in over the Pacific Ocean, the craft is outfitted with a destruct mechanism.

Future X-37B Missions?

Meanwhile, Boeing has begun to look at derivatives of their X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle — including flying cargo and crew to the International Space Station.

Speaking this week at the Space 2011 conference —organized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and held in Long Beach, Calif. —Arthur Grantz of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems sketched out a host of future uses for the space plane design.

For one, the X-37B, as is, can be flown to the space station and dock to the facility's common berthing mechanism. No new technology is required for X-37B to supply cargo services to the ISS, Grantz said. Also, an X-37C winged vehicle has been scoped out, a craft that would ride atop an Atlas 5 in un-shrouded mode.

The Boeing roadmap, Grantz added, also envisions a larger derivative of the X-37B space plane, one that can carry up to seven astronauts, as well as tote into Earth orbit a mix of pressurized and unpressurized cargo.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999

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