4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
TUESDAY. MARCH 28, 2006
NASA
NASA/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
This undated artist concept released by NASA shows the Dawn Mission spacecraft. NASA resurrected the Dawn Mission to explore two of the solar system's largest asteroids Monday, just weeks after the project was killed because of budget woes. The space agency scrapped the mission earlier this month to orbit the asteroids Ceres and Vesta.
Mission resurrected; asteroids to be explored
BY ALICIA CHANG
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — NASA resurrected an ambitious mission to explore two of the solar system's largest asteroids Monday, just weeks after budget woes killed the project.
The space agency scrapped the Dawn mission this month to orbit the asteroids Ceres and Vesta, nearly half a year after it was put on hold because of cost overruns and technical problems. The project's cost is now estimated at $446 million.
NASA decided to review the cancellation after the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which managed the mission, made an appeal.
NASA Associate Administrator Rex Geveden, who led the review, said the Dawn team has made significant progress in addressing the technical problems.
"There are always pretty tall challenges, and it looks like Dawn is prepared to take those on and beat them," Geveden said.
Powered by a xenon ion engine, Dawn would be the first spacecraft to circle the asteroids Ceres and Vesta, which are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Dawn is now scheduled for launch in July 2007. The mission's cost was capped at $373 million, but NASA will pony up an extra $73 million to launch the spacecraft, instead of spending $14 million to terminate it.
Powered by a xenon ion engine, Dawn would be the first spacecraft to circle Ceres and Vesta, which are in the asteroid
belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Ceres and Vesta are believed to have formed in different parts of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago, and studying them could provide clues to how the sun and planets formed.
The delayed launch should not affect the spacecraft's arrival time, Geveden said. Dawn was scheduled to reach Vesta in 2011, then fly to Ceres in 2015.
Scientists were outraged when NASA axed the Dawn mission after a March 2 congressional budget hearing. The agency cited a report by an independent team that found more than two dozen problems that needed to be resolved.
The cancellation came at a precarious time at NASA, which had been forced to cut or delay several science projects to help pay for the development of new manned vehicles to return to the moon next decade.
Military raid, bombing halt talks
BY STEVEN R. HURST
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Shiite politicians raged at the United States and halted negotiations on a new government Monday after a military assault killed at least 16 people in what Iraqis claim was a mosque. Fresh violence erupted in the north, with 40 killed in a suicide bombing.
The firestorm of recrimination over Sunday's raid in northeast Baghdad will likely make it harder for Shiite politicians to keep a lid on their more angry followers as sectarian violence bolls over, with at least 151 dead over the two-day period. A unity government involving Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds is a benchmark for American hopes of starting to withdraw troops this summer.
There were numerous conflicting statements from Iraqis and the Americans about the raid. Iraqi police, Shilite militia officials and major politicians have all said the structure attacked was the al-Mustafa mosque. But the U.S. military disputed this, saying no mosques were entered and that the raid targeted a building used by "insurgents responsible for kidnapping and execution activities."
In a conference call with reporters early Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, deputy commander in Iraq, and Maj. Gen. J.D. Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which is in control of Baghdad, said 25 U.S. forces were in a backup role to 50 Iraqi Special Operations troops.
The mission, the generals said, was developed by the Iraqis on their intelligence that an Iraqi
dental technician, knidnapped 12 hours earlier because he could not come up with $20,000, was being in what they called an office complex.
"It's important to remember we had an Iraqi unit with us, an Iraqi unit of 50 folks and they told us point blank that this was not a mosque," Chiarelli said. "It's not Mustafa mosque. Mustafa mosque is located six blocks north on our maps of this location."
Associated Press reporters who visited the scene of the raid identified it as a neighborhood Shiite mosque complex. Television footage taken Monday showed crumbling walls and disarray in a compound used as a gathering place for prayer. It was filled with religious posters and strung with banners denouncing the attack.
Cancer Center
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
ated by the Kansas Economic Growth Act.
Marci Nielsen, assistant vice chancellor for health policy, said she was thrilled the legislators were interested in meeting the cancer center's goals, but the proposed legislation wouldn't help the center.
The proposed Kansas cancer act not only calls for expanded cancer research, but also establishes organizational requirements for the cancer center and gives administrative power to the Kansas Bioscience Authority, a independent board crea-
Rep. Bonnie Sharp (D-Kansas City) said the cancer center could proceed without the detailed legislation that draws administrative power away from the experts at the center. Organizations like the Kansas Bioscience Authority are just part of the equation for success that requires "a lot of commitment by a lot of other people," she said, to take advantage of Kansas' existing capital resources.
legislator was behind the cause of defeating cancer, but some wanted structure in the $5 million appropriation to the cancer center.
The priority is setting the cancer center up for success, Landwehr said, requiring a community effort that requires taxpayers to become financial partners in the center. The cancer act establishes an administrative structure for the center involving outside officials and is the only bill designed to control the $5 million.
Rep. Brenda Landweir (R- Wichita) said she thought every
— Edited by Gabriella Souza
Kemp
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
Today, 171 democracies exist in the world, which is a vast improvement, but even the United States has work to do, he said.
He criticized his own Republican party for creating a law that criminalized aiding possible illegal immigrants because every U.S. citizen was an immigrant at one time.
She would have to earn twice as much to have as much to spend as she did on welfare, he said. He said the world today was kind of like Charles Dickens' words, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
Despite the harsher economic conditions, Kemp encouraged students by saying that the only thing really standing in the way of their own success is themselves.
Edited by Vanessa Pearson
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