As engines are fired, software written and hardware welded to prepare for the first flight of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), engineers are already running tests in supersonic wind tunnels to develop the next, more powerful version of the world's most advanced launch vehicle capable of carrying humans to deep space destinations.

“Aeronautics leads the way in the design of a new rocket,” said Jeff Bland, SLS discipline lead engineer for Integrated Vehicle Structures & Environments at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “The first leg any journey for spacecraft launched from Earth is a flight through our atmosphere.”

Manufacturing is well underway on the initial configuration of SLS. It is 322 feet tall and able to lift 70 metric tons.

For the first test flight of SLS, the rocket will carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond the moon and then return to Earth, deploying 13 small science and technology satellites in deep space during the journey.

The new wind tunnel tests are for the second generation of SLS. It will deliver a 105-metric-ton (115-ton) lift capacity and will be 364 feet tall in the crew configuration – taller than the Saturn V that launched astronauts on missions to the moon.

The rocket's core stage will be the same, but the newer rocket will feature a powerful exploration upper stage. On SLS’s second flight with Orion, the rocket will carry up to four astronauts on a mission around the moon, in the deep-space proving ground for the technologies and capabilities needed on NASA’s Journey to Mars.

Scale models of the upgraded rocket in crew and cargo configurations are being carefully positioned in wind tunnels for test programs to obtain data needed to refine the design of the rocket and its guidance and control systems, said Dr. John Blevins, SLS lead engineer for aerodynamics and acoustics at Marshall. During hundreds of test runs at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, engineers are measuring the forces and loads that air induces on the launch vehicle during every phase of its mission.

“All the critical aerodynamic environments, from when the upgraded rocket leaves the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral to launch, acceleration through the sound barrier and booster separation at greater than Mach 4 are evaluated in these four tests,” Blevins said.

Ascent tests completed at Ames in November determined the rocket's behavior as it climbs after launch, and the kind of instructions to be programmed into the rocket flight computer for guidance and control as the rocket passes through transonic flight. For instance, the tests will determine what commands the autopilot will send to the rocket's nozzles to correct for wind or other factors and stay on course.

Buffet testing at Langley in November focused primarily on how the cargo version of the upgraded rocket behaves as it moves through the atmosphere at just below the speed of sound, approaching about 800 miles per hour, then moves into supersonic flight.

As the rocket approaches the speed of sound, shock waves build and move along different points of the launch vehicle. These shock waves can cause buffeting, shaking, vibration and unsteady loads that could result in damage or course changes that must be corrected, Blevins said.

The cargo version of the upgraded rocket has a smooth fairing above the exploration upper stage instead of the Orion spacecraft and launch abort system, so separate wind tunnel testing is needed.

Similar tests planned for the fall 2017 at Langley will include observing this transonic shock oscillation and buffeting on the crew version of the rocket, at both subsonic speeds and higher Mach numbers.

At Mach 1.5 or 2, the waves terminate, or remain at the same points on the rocket for the rest of the flight, but they continue to change angle and strength.

These wind tunnel tests are critical, Blevins said, because the location and temporal behavior of these shock waves are difficult to predict with computational fluid dynamics – they must be observed and measured.

Two other test series are planned at Langley. The first in early 2017 will provide data to ensure that as the SLS’s two solid rocket boosters separate from the rocket during ascent, they don't come back into contact with the vehicle.

These tests are complex, Blevins said, because the models of the rocket’s core stage and each of the two boosters are separately instrumented, and even the dynamics of the small rocket motors that jettison the boosters are simulated.

Next will be liftoff transition testing, scheduled in the summer. These tests will include evaluation of the effects of winds on the rocket as it is waiting on the pad, and the presence of the mobile launcher and tower during liftoff. Drift of the vehicle as it moves past the tower must be controlled to avoid damage and because the sound bouncing back from the pad can cause damaging vibration.

“We expect that at the end of this test series we will have all the aerodynamic flight data needed for the upgraded rocket,” he said. “We'll be ready for the first flight with crew, targeted as early as 2021, and subsequent flights.”

NASA engineers have also teamed with CUBRC Inc. of Buffalo, New York, to use a special type of wind tunnel to better understand and analyze how the SLS heats up as it ascends into space. A model of the rocket was used in the first phase of aerodynamic heating tests in CUBRC's Large Energy National Shock Tunnel (LENS-II) in September. A second phase of testing is planned for models of the SLS in crew and cargo versions, in early 2017.

The SLS wind tunnel testing is very much a cross-agency effort resulting in information and new test techniques that also benefit other rocket and aerospace programs, said Dr. Patrick Shea. He's based at Langley, but served as SLS aerodynamics test lead for the transonic ascent testing recently completed at the Ames facilities.

For example, the Ames aerodynamics team is developing an optical measurement method involving Unsteady Pressure-Sensitive Paint. During a test, special lights and cameras will observe changes in the paint's fluorescence, indicating the strength of aerodynamic forces acting along different areas of the rocket or test article. Ames was able to take advantage of the presence of the SLS rocket model to conduct its own tests using the paint.

“For a lot of aero-acoustics and buffet work, we instrument the models with hundreds of pressure sensors. If we can start moving to more of an optical technique such as the dynamic pressure sensitive paint, it will really make good strides forward,” Shea said. “It ended up being a really nice integration of their test technique and our test campaign.”

COBB, Calif. – A community celebration for the community of Cobb is set for Christmas Day.

The free event will take Sunday, Dec. 25, at the Little Red Schoolhouse, 15780 Bottle Rock Road.

At noon the fun will start with cookies, gingerbread houses, hot chocolate and caroling.

Dinner will be served from 2 to 4 p.m.

There also will be presents for Cobb Mountain's children.

To attend, volunteer or donate, call Kelly at 707-486-4141.

Settling a decedent's estate can test the personal strengths and weaknesses of the surviving family members’ abilities to get along with each other.

Any preexisting distrust, jealousy and animosity harbored by any of the surviving family members toward one another can erupt into hostility, especially when money is involved.

Let us consider some specific scenarios that can create fertile ground for quarrels amongst a decedent's surviving children and what can be done to prevent or lessen such quarrels.

Anytime beneficiaries feel that they are not receiving what they are entitled to or feel that they are being unfairly treated, resentment brews.

The fighting between the beneficiaries and trustee or executor, as relevant, administering the estate that follows often exacerbates the costs, time and aggravation associated with administering the estate. The associated litigation fees sometimes eat up much of the decedent’s estate.

Unequal distributions amongst surviving children can easily – rightly or wrongly – leave the children at the short end of the stick feeling disgruntled. There are various ways and reasons why children receive different amounts.

One way inequality can result is because children receive different pieces of real properties which have unequal values.

The disparity in land can be offset by gifting cash or other assets to those beneficiaries who receives less in real property, such as through life insurance. That presumes, of course, that the parent desires to treat all children equally.

If not, then it can be helpful to the person who settles the estate if the parent while still alive documents in writing his or her intention to have unequal distributions to support the parent's will or trust, as relevant.

Naturally, if the parent was susceptible to undue influence, coercion or fraud, or if the parent had diminished mental capacity, when the parent executed his or her estate plan then those children receiving less than another child may decide to contest the estate plan as being invalid on such grounds.

When one child receives substantially more lifetime gifts than another that can lead to discontent both during the parents' lifetimes and afterwards amongst their surviving children.

Some parents try to level the playing field at their death by counting the significant lifetime gifts made to a child as advances against that child's inheritance.

After the parent dies the child who received the large lifetime gifts may fee considerable disappointment over the sizable reduction they experience in their inheritance.

There can be a disconnect in the child’s mind as to why such “old” gifts from years ago should reduce their inheritances.

Anticipated quarrels amongst the children can sometimes be reduced if the parents while alive carefully explains to the child who received large lifetime gifts that these lifetime are advances against their future inheritance. Documentation of the advances is also necessary for administration purposes. Alternatively, a parent may simply equalize lifetime gifting amongst the children and eliminate the issue.

It is desirable that whoever as trustee or executor settles a decedent's estate possess the trust and confidence of the beneficiaries. Otherwise the beneficiaries are more likely to distrust and contest how the estate is being administered.

Selecting a good person to administer your trust or estate may mean looking beyond one’s own children and considering capable friends, siblings, nieces and nephews.

The fact that the trustee or executor is not a beneficiary of the estate, but is reasonably compensated for their services, means that they do not have an inherent conflict of interest.

Many clients who get their affairs in order jokingly tell me that they do not care what happens after they die because they won’t be here.

But, anyone who gets their affairs in order to protect surviving loved surely does not intend their estate to become a bone of contention amongst these same loved ones.

Knowing one’s beneficiaries and taking steps to address potential sources of discontent, like discussed above, is part of good estate planning that leaves a legacy of love and thoughtfulness for one’s family.

Dennis A. Fordham, Attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235. His Web site is www.DennisFordhamLaw.com .

The world's largest digital survey of the visible Universe, mapping billions of stars and galaxies, has been publicly released.

The data has been made available by the international Pan-STARRS project, which includes scientists from Queen's University Belfast, who have predicted that it will lead to new discoveries about the Universe.

Astronomers and cosmologists used a 1.8-metre telescope at the summit of Haleakalā, on Maui, Hawaii, to repeatedly image three quarters of the visible sky over four years.

Three billion sources

The data they have captured in the Pan-STARRS1 Surveys is made up of three billion separate sources, including stars, galaxies, and other space objects.

This immense collection of information contains two petabytes of computer data - equivalent to one billion selfies or one hundred times the total content of Wikipedia.

Pan-STARRS is hosted by the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, which is releasing the data alongside the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA.

The international collaboration also includes Queen's University Belfast and the Universities of Durham and Edinburgh and is supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation.Durham's contribution was funded by a generous donation from the Ogden Trust and Durham University.

Luminous distant explosions

Queen's University Belfast Professor Stephen Smartt, who is Chair of the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) Science Council, said: "We've worked on this project for more than five years at Queen's and have found the most luminous distant explosions in the Universe and also nearby asteroids in our solar system.

"It was a fantastic team effort and now we hope the whole science community will benefit from this public release of our data."

Digital survey

In May 2010, the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS, observatory embarked on a digital survey of the sky in visible and near infrared light.

This was the first survey with a goal of observing the sky very rapidly over and over again, looking for moving objects and transient or variable objects, including asteroids that could potentially threaten the Earth.

Dr Ken Chambers, Director of the Pan-STARRS Observatories, at the University of Hawaii, said: "The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys allow anyone to access millions of images and use the database and catalogues containing precision measurements of billions of stars and galaxies.

"Pan-STARRS has already made discoveries from Near Earth Objects and Kuiper Belt Objects in the Solar System to lonely planets between the stars; it has mapped the dust in three dimensions in our galaxy and found new streams of stars; and it has found new kinds of exploding stars and distant quasars in the early Universe."

Static sky

The roll-out of the survey data is being done in two steps.

Today's release is the "Static Sky" which provides an average value for the position, brightness and colour for objects captured in the sky at individual moments in time.

In 2017, a second set of data will be released including catalogues and images from each of the individual snapshots that Pan-STARRS took of a given region of sky.

The data from the Pan-STARRS1 surveys will be available online at http://panstarrs.stsci.edu .

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LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Thursday, the men and women of several local law enforcement agencies took on another sacred duty – this time, as Santa's helpers – as they distributed gifts to children around Lake County who have been victims of crime.

The 21st annual toy drive, led by the Lake County District Attorney’s Office Victim-Witness Division, provided toys to 75 local families, according to Debbie Wallace, Victim-Witness' director.

Wallace said the children who the toy and gift drive help are served by her agency during the year.

Victim-Witness dealt with some very serious cases this year and a lot of need, which Wallace said the effort tried to address.

In October, Victim-Witness staff starts making lists of the children to include, and contacts their families to find out what their Christmas wishes are, she said.

She said that while one child in a family may have been a crime victim who her division assisted, all of the children in the family receive presents, whether it be toys or clothing.

The wish list is given to the parishioners of St. Mary Immaculate Church in Lakeport around the second week of November, she said.

“I really want to thank the parishioners, because it's the parishioners who buy the presents for the kids,” said Wallace, adding that when the presents are brought to Victim-Witness, they're all beautifully wrapped and ready for delivery.

At the same time, two county offices – those of auditor and assessor – select an entire family to buy gifts for among the Victim-Witness clients, Wallace said.

Additionally, Wallace said this year District Attorney's Office Chief Investigator Craig Woodworth and Lake County Bible Fellowship Church bought presents for a third family.

The families are notified a few days before the delivery takes place, which Wallace said this year was on Thursday morning.

Taking part in the gift delivery on Thursday were the California Highway Patrol, Clearlake Police, the District Attorney's Office, the Lake County Sheriff's Office and the Lakeport Police Department, Wallace said.

She said this year, something fun happened for the agencies involved.

When Sheriff Brian Martin returned from making the deliveries, he had with him three homemade thank you letters from children, Wallace said.

“We've never had that,” she said, noting that the children's parents or guardians, knowing the delivery date, must have had the children prepare the notes ahead of time.

“It was really a treat for us all here,” she said.

This was Wallace's last toy distribution. After heading it up for many years, she'll retire on Dec. 30.

However, she guaranteed it will continue in the years ahead, under the department's new leadership.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

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