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A network of NGOs funded by U.S. taxpayers, the United Nations, other nations’ governments, and corporations, are secretly facilitating the invasion of illegal aliens at the U.S. southern border, a report said. A group of NGOs are literally giving illegals ‘blueprints’ on how to reach and cross the U.S. southern border. Muckraker, a new website, obtained what it described as “mass migration blueprints” that were distributed by NGOs to illegals across South and Central America. The “blueprints” detail transportation routes and points to cross the border. “The collapse of the U.S. southern border is the result of a carefully planned...

Doing preliminary research to install solar on my new house.

A hundred years ago — and that's when this picture was taken, in 1912 — men didn't leave home without a hat. Boys wore caps. This is a socialist political rally in Union Square in Manhattan. There may be a bare head or two in this crowd, but I think those heads are women's.

A congressional panel grilled NASA chief Charlie Bolden today (July 12) on Capitol Hill, repeatedly asking him why the space agency has yet to choose a design for its next-generation heavy-lift rocket. Last year Congress gave NASA until mid-January 2011 to pick a design for the rocket, known as the Space Launch System, that will carry astronauts on deep space missions. NASA still has not made an official decision, and members of the House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology took Bolden to task. "We've waited for answers that have not come. We've pleaded for answers that have...

Japanese research and development firm Eamex claims to have found a new way to increase the typical average life of a high-capacity lithium-ion battery. Eamex's new technology will allow the demanding batteries to sustain over 10,000 recharges over the course of 20 years. This rather dramatic increase in performance is made possible by new techniques such as a stabilization process of the battery's electrodes, which in-turn puts less stress on the battery's tin. This maintains the bonding of particles for a longer period of time and reduces the overall deterioration process. The result is a battery that lasts up to...

Video of Engine Test Using traditional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars – at quickest — lasts 6 months. But a new rocket tested successfully last week could potentially cut down travel time to the Red Planet to just 39 days. The Ad Astra Rocket Company tested a plasma rocket called the VASIMR VX-200 engine, which ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. "It's the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now," says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. The company has also signed...

In what could potentially be a revolutionary breakthrough for everything from laptops to electric cars, a South Korean team of researchers have made a major discovery in Lithium-Ion battery technology. A team of researchers at South Korea’s Hanyung University, led by professor Cho Jaephil, has claimed a discovery that could extend lithium ion battery energy capacity by up to 1000% or more. The key to Jaephil’s discovery was the application of a three-dimensional porous silicon graphite cathode, which has the ability of holding up to ten times the number of lithium ions as conventional graphite cathodes. Patents have already been...

June 8, 2007 This has to be one of the most 'futuristic' developments we've seen in some time; a new U.S. patent has been awarded to a company that has plans for a safe, silent personal flight device using electromagnetic ion propulsion as its primary thrust generator and drawing its power wirelessly from earthbound inductive green power broadcast stations. California's Personal Flight Systems are taking a serious look at the future of personal flight, and the technology involved will leave you shaking your head. It's been seven years now since the dawn of the new millennium, but it just doesn't...

Spacecraft could one day be propelled by ion beams shooting up from the Moon, according to a recent concept study. Other spacecraft, such as Deep Space 1 and SMART-1, have flown with ion engines, which work by stripping electrons off gas atoms and accelerating the ions with an electric field. The ions create thrust as they are shot out of the engine. The idea behind the new study is to rip out the engine and mount it on the ground, beaming ions up to the spacecraft. "This first look at the idea seems to indicate that it is, in principle,...

Romanians freed in Iraq after two months ALEXANDRU ALEXE /Associated Press May. 22, 2005 BUCHAREST, Romania - Three Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-American guide were freed Sunday after nearly two months in captivity in Iraq, the president's office said. All four were in the custody of Romanian authorities, officials said, ending a kidnapping that had sparked rallies and prayer vigils in Romania, which has 800 troops in Iraq. "They are unharmed and we will announce to the public when they will return to the country," said Adriana Saftoiu, a spokeswoman for Romanian President Traian Basescu. The three Romanians - newspaper...

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) A Romanian court issued arrest warrants Friday in the kidnappings of three journalists in Iraq, saying the abductions were plotted by the Iraqi-American guide who claimed to be a victim and the businessman who claimed to be negotiating their release. The three journalists returned to Romania on Monday after 55 days in captivity. Prosecutors said testimony from nine people arrested in Baghdad led them to seek terrorism charges against Mohammed Monaf, the journalists' guide, and Monaf's business partner, Omar Hayssam. Monaf, charged in absentia, was reported to have been held with the journalists and was seen with...

An ion engine several times more powerful than any previously flown is being tested by NASA. It could propel a spacecraft all the way to Saturn's moon Titan. Ion engines operate by removing electrons from atoms of a gas – usually xenon – and then accelerating the resulting ions through an electric field. The ions are shot out the back of the engine to create thrust. The engines provide much less thrust at any given time than do rockets. But they are much more fuel efficient, providing a steady source of propulsion that could ideally be used to take spacecraft...

The European Space Agency and the Australian National University have successfully tested an ion engine that could one day take astronauts to Mars, at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands. The Dual Stage 4 Grid (DS4G) engine has a specific impulse (Isp) of 19,000s, compared with existing ion systems that achieve 4,500s.To do this it uses, as its name suggests, a four-grid design developed by UK company EP Solutions. Existing ion engines use two perforated grids, which have voltages applied to them. The gas propellant’s electron-stripped atoms, which are the ions, are pulled from their container...

A new design for an ion engine promises up to 10 times the fuel-efficiency of existing electric propulsion engines, according to tests by the European Space Agency. The new thruster could be used to propel craft into interstellar space, or to power a crewed mission to Mars, ESA says. Ion engines work by using an electric field to accelerate a beam of positively charged particles – ions – away from the spacecraft, thereby providing propulsion. Existing models, such as the engine used in ESA’s Moon mission, SMART-1, extract the ions from a reservoir and expel them in a single process.

Inside a sprawling, crowded building at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a small window to the future of space exploration. Busting out of one end of the building, a vacuum chamber the size of a motor home houses an engine that has been running for nearly three years. It is months beyond its life expectancy. Its power source is unlimited. Its fuel is plucked from the air we breathe. And it is 10 times more efficient than a chemically powered engine.

President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration calls for human and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. To realize these ambitious goals, the United States will need more powerful and efficient propulsion and power-generation systems - systems that can thrust a spacecraft out of Earth's orbit to the far reaches of the Universe. NASA's primary research program for developing these technologies is Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology. Named for the ancient Greek god of fire and craft, Prometheus has two initial objectives:

NASA Successfully Tests Ion Engine NASA's Project Prometheus recently reached an important milestone with the first successful test of an engine that could lead to revolutionary propulsion capabilities for space exploration missions throughout the solar system and beyond. The test involved a High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) ion engine. The event marked the first in a series of performance tests to demonstrate new high-velocity and high- power thrust needed for use in nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) applications. "The initial test went extremely well," said Dr. John Foster, the primary investigator of the HiPEP ion engine at NASA's Glenn Research...

The future is here for spacecraft propulsion and the trouble-free engine performance that every vehicle operator would like to see, achieved by an ion engine running for a record 30,352 hours at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 July 20 An Ion Drive for Deep Space 1 Credit: New Millennium Program, JPL, NASA Explanation: Space travel entered the age of the ion drive in 1998 with the launch of Deep Space 1, a NASA mission designed primarily to test new technologies. Although the ion drive on Deep Space 1 provided acceleration much smaller than we feel toward Earth, it gradually gave the spacecraft the speed...

NASA wants space flights to be nuclear Fission would be used to produce electricity Agency says safety top priority in 2-pronged project GWYNETH SHAW SPECIAL TO THE STAR WASHINGTON—There's a fact that NASA chief administrator Sean O'Keefe has become fond of sharing during his first year in office: Today's spaceships travel at the same speed as the Friendship 7 when John Glenn rode it to fame with his 1962 orbit of the Earth. O'Keefe's point: There have been few advances in space propulsion in the last 40 years. If the chief has his way, however, that will change. Last year,...