NASA plans to land shuttle if crew has to leave ship

NASA officials revealed a new plan on Thursday that might allow a last-ditch effort to save a damaged space .

NASA officials revealed a new plan on Thursday that might allow a last-ditch effort to save a damaged space shuttle by guiding it back to Earth without astronauts aboard. The system, which could be used if astronauts were forced to abandon the shuttle and take refuge in the International Space Station, makes use of a 28-ft-long braided cable, weighing about five pounds, that can be attached to various control boxes on the shuttle. It would allow flight controllers on the ground to activate systems that previously had to be switched on by members of the shuttle crew, including power units, landing gear and drag chutes.

The newly announced cable system could offer an alternative to ditching a craft worth at least $2 billion. If the craft had a chance of successful re-entry but official felt the risk to crew might be unacceptably high, the cable could be tried. The landing might be tried at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California so the approach to Earth would occur over water. The plan was developed over the past year, said Kyle Herring, a NASA spokesman. In the past NASA officials have argued that it would be impossible to land the shuttle without astronauts. Before the cable was developed, Herring said, the ability to feed landing instructions to the computers was there, but ‘‘the ability to land safely was not’’. —NYT

A camera for children, to take pictures of parents

The Kid-Tough Digital Camera from Fisher-Price turns the tables on the usual family photography scene. It gives children a sturdy camera with a preview screen, automatic flash, storage on SD memory cards and easy transfer to Macintosh or Windows computers through a USB cable. You can’t miss the large shutter button, which makes a loud, fake shutter noise when pressed. The picture appears on a tiny screen, and there are two arrow buttons for photo browsing, plus a trash button for deletions. All aspects of this camera are easy to use, except changing the four AA batteries, which involves a hunt for a screwdriver. The dual-eye viewfinder eliminates the need to squint. Remember struggling to wink when you were little? The camera produces 640-by-480-pixel photos that are small and fuzzy. The upside is that 75 of them fit in the scant 8 MB of internal memory. The picture count could go into the thousands if you use the SD card slot. Nobody understands user interfaces like toymakers, whose products must make sense to nonreaders with short attention spans. Perhaps Fisher-Price should make cameras for grown-ups.

Padlock for the iPod

It’s an iPod world, and that makes Apple’s popular music player a target for thieves. Police departments around the world have reported a surge in thefts of iPods and other portable music players. To foil iPod snatchers, Targus recently introduced the Mobile Security Lock for iPod. The company makes many security devices for computers, the most common being a steel cable and lock that attach to the security slot found on just about every laptop. IPods do not have a security slot, so Targus is making use of the docking connector to help secure them. The Targus device has a thick plastic case that can be tied, clipped or strapped to a backpack, belt or purse. A combination lock, which is attached to the case by a cable, pops out of the case’s center and hooks into the dock connector. The lock is available at targus.com. It will soon be available at the usual online stores and major electronic outlets. Perhaps it will help wipe out one form of music theft. —NYT

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‘I don’t know what awaits me in the US’: The lives upended by Trump’s H-1B proclamation

India9 hr ago

The recent imposition of a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas by Trump has caused chaos and uncertainty for Indian families in Dubai, leading many to rush back to the US. This has particularly affected Telugu-speaking Indians, with the Telangana IT Minister seeking intervention from the Centre.

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