8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DABY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2007
>> NASA
Endeavour safely home
Shuttle returns early to avoid threat of Hurricane Dean
BY MARCIA DUNN Associated Press
Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Endeavour returned to Earth safely Tuesday, ending a nearly two-week orbital drama that centered on a deep gouge in the shuttle's belly and an early homecoming prompted by a hurricane.
The shuttle swooped out of the partly cloudy sky and touched down on the runway at 12:32 p.m. as the astronauts families cheered.
"Congratulations. Welcome home. You've given a new meaning
to higher education. Mission Control told the crew, which included teacher-turned astronaut Barbara Morgan. Morgan had been Christa McAuliffe's backup for the doomed 1986 Challenger flight.
NASA officials quickly gathered under Endeavour pointing and gazing up at the gouged tiles. At the same time, cameras focused on the damage, offering detailed close-up views.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, center in white, and other NASA managers give a thumbs up to the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour shortly after touch down Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Endeavour returned to Earth safely Tuesday, ending a nearly two-week orbital drama that centered on a deep quake in the shuttle's belly and an early homecoming promoted by a hurricane.
"On first glance here, there doesn't appear to be much damage from the heat of re-entry there," said NASA spokesman George Diller.
The main con-
Six of the seven astronauts climbed out and inspected their ship, but Morgan did not emerge from the crew-transport vehicle. NASA offered no immediate explanation, noting that anything regarding the
Bill Innals/ASSOICIATED PRESS
"On first glance here, there doesn't appear to be much damage from the heat of reentry there."
astronauts' health was private information.
Over the past few days and right up until landing, NASA had stressed that the gouge in Endeavour's belly would not endanger the shuttle during its landing, but it did not want the shuttle to suffer any structural damage that might require lengthy repairs.
There was zero chance of a Columbia-style disaster this time, NASA managers insisted, although they acknowledged re-entry was always risky. In 2003, a chunk of flyaway foam had damaged the shuttle Columbia's wing, allowing hot gases to seep in during the re-entry and tear the shuttle apart.
The main concern for much of Endeavour's mission was the 3½-inch-long gouge to the shuttle's protective tiles caused by falling debris during liftoff.
GEORGE DILLER NASA spokesman
The much smaller damaged area on Endeavour was also subjected to 2,000-degree temperatures during the hottest part of atmospheric reentry, but engineers were convinced after a week of thermal analyses and tests that the spacecraft would hold up.
With its pilots reporting no problems, Endeavour zoomed over the South Pacific, crossed Central America and Cuba, then headed up the Florida peninsula into Kennedy Space Center. Its trip spanned 13 days and 5.3 million miles.
The shuttle wasn't supposed to return until Wednesday, but mission managers decided to cut its space station visit short because of Hurricane Dean. At the time, NASA was uncertain if Dean would veer toward Texas and threaten Houston, home to Mission Control. Even though forecasters later put Houston out of harm's way, NASA held to a
Tuesday landing.
A half-hour after landing, Mission Control jokingly asked commander Scott Kelly if he wanted to turn the shuttle around and "set up for another quick one."
"Give us the weekend off and maybe next Monday," Kelly replied.
During Endeavour's liftoff on Aug. 8, a piece of foam insulation or ice had broken off a bracket on the
external fuel tank, fell onto a strut lower on the tank and then bounced into the shuttle, gashing its tiles.
The astronauts inspected the especially vulnerable areas Sunday, after undocking from the international space station. NASA on Monday cleared Endeavour for landing after engineers finished evaluating the latest laser images of the shuttle's wings and nose and concluded there were
Brackets have shed debris in launches since Columbia, but it wasn't until Endeavour's flight that such debris caused noticeable damage again. The damage triggered a weeklong analysis that involved hundreds of engineers and thousands of hours of supercomputer simulations.
no holes or cracks from micrometeorites or space junk.
FINANCES
Session ends higher
Few commitments made
NEW YORK — Wall Street ended another erratic session mostly higher Tuesday as investors, waiting for the Federal Reserve's next move to steady the markets, made few major commitments to stocks.
Comments from policy makers and government officials tugged at a market looking for any evidence the Fed will cut rates to help contain the credit crisis that began with the failure of subprime loans.
The Fed has taken a number of steps to prop up the nation's financial institutions ahead of its scheduled Sept. 18 meeting, including injecting more liquidity into the banking industry and cutting the discount rate. But many on Wall Street want the Fed to do more, including lowering the more important federal funds rate, and to do it before next month's meeting.
According to preliminary calculations, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average fell 30.49, or 0.23 percent, to 13,090.86 after moving in and out of positive territory throughout the day.
Broader market indexes were slightly higher. The Standard and Poor's 500 index rose 1.57, or 0.11 percent, to 1,447.12, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 12.71, or 0.51 percent, to 2,521.30. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies added 0.93, or 0.12 percent, to 788.38.
Bonds continued to rally, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note falling to 4.59 percent from 4.63 percent late Monday. Bond prices move opposite yields.
Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran — A detained Iranian-American academic accused of conspiring against the government was freed on bail Tuesday from the Tehran prison where she had been jailed since early May, a top judiciary official said.
Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has been jailed largely incommunicado at Tehran's Evin prison on charges of acting against national security.
BY ALI AKBAR DAREINI ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mohammad Shadabi, an official at the Tehran prosecutor's office, told The Associated Press she was freed on $333,000 bail. Shadabi said he could not say whether Esfandiari would be allowed to leave Iran.
Iranian-Americans face charges
INTERNATIONAL
Earlier, Esfandiari's husband said her mother used the deed to her Tehran apartment to post bail.
"I feel extremely good. It has been a very anxious several months. Now we hope she will not only be released from prison but allowed to come back home," the husband, Shaul Bakhash, said from his home in Potomac, Md.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said he had seen reports of the release of Esfandiari, who was among four Iranian-Americans detained in Iran, but could not confirm them.
"Our position has always been
that Esfandiari as well as the other three have done nothing wrong, should not have been in the situation they found themselves in and should be free right now," he said.
Iran confirmed in mid-May that Esfandiari was held and charged her later that month. The only contact her family has had have been short phone calls to her mother from prison.
Esfandiari's troubles in Iran began when three masked men holding knives threatened to kill her on Dec. 30 as she was her way to the Tehran airport after visiting her 93-year-old mother, the Wilson Center said. They took her baggage, including her U.S. and Iranian passports, the center said.
Last month, Iranian public television broadcast video in which Esandiarii said a network of foreign activists tried to destabilize Iran and bring about "essential" social change. The video also featured Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute.
Two other Iranian-Americans also face security-related charges: Parnaz Azima, a journalist for U.S-funded Radio Farda, and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California, Irvine. Shakeri is in prison, while Azima is free but cannot leave Iran.
Both the Wilson Center and the New York-based Open Society Institute have criticized the Iranian government for the broadcast and dismissed the statements as "coerced."
For several weeks, she was interrogated by authorities for up to eight hours a day, according to the center. Most of the questioning focused on the activities of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.
Earlier this month, Iranian authorities said they have concluded an investigations into Esfandiari, and Kian Tajbakhsh, another detained Iranian-American also accused of conspiring against the country's security.
At the time, no decision had been made on a trial.
The Evin prison is notorious for its harsh conditions for political prisoners. Esfandiari's husband and the Wilson Center have said she was not permitted to speak to lawyers.
Family members, colleagues and employers of all the detained have consistently denied the allegations.
Apart from Esfandiari's case, there was no news Tuesday on the other three Iranian-Americans.
The detentions have become another point of contention in the tensions between the U.S. and Iran, joining Washington's accusations that Iran arms Shiite Muslim militants in Iraq, fuels unrest in Lebanon and seeks to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denies those claims, and blames Washington for Iraq's instability.
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