Asteroid visit is all NASA can afford

A NASA plan to send astronauts to an asteroid was met with skepticism Wednesday when NASA Chief Charlie Bolden presented the idea to top space officials in Congress — though their doubts may not be enough to sink the program. 

The asteroid mission, unveiled a few weeks ago, would send a NASA probe to capture a small asteroid and drag it to a point near the moon so astronauts riding a new rocket and capsule could visit it, possibly as soon as 2021. 

“The goal is (to) remain the world’s leader in exploration," Bolden said. But members of the U.S. House science committee took issue with the project’s cost and feasibility — and questioned why the agency wasn’t planning a return to the moon en route to an eventual mission to Mars. 

As part of its 2014 budget proposal, the White House wants NASA to spend $105 million next year to begin planning the asteroid mission, which could cost upward of $2.6 billion. 

After the joy of the birth itself, parenthood sometimes brings the unwelcome news that a newborn has jaundice and must wear goggles and be placed under special lights. Imagine how different this experience might be if there were no goggles, just a warm blanket covering the tiny body, a healing frequency of blue light emanating from its folds. 

That comforting scene, already a reality in some hospitals, is evidence of the fundamental rethinking of lighting now under way in research labs, executive offices and investor conferences. Digital revolutionaries have Edison’s 130-year-old industry, and its $100 billion in worldwide revenue, in their sights. Color, control and function are all being reassessed, and new players have emerged like a wave of Silicon Valley startups. 

“This is the move from the last industrial-age analog technology to a digital technology," said Fred Maxik, the chief technology officer with the Lighting Science Group Corp., one of many newWith advancements in controls technology, gardenlightingss are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and flexible.er players in the field. 

The efforts start with energy efficiency and cost savings but go far beyond replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs. Light’s potential to heal, soothe, invigorate or safeguard people is being exploited to introduce products like the blanket, versions of which are offered by General Electric and in development at Philips, the Dutch electronics giant. 

Innovations on the horizon range from smart lampposts that can sense gas hazards to lights harnessed for office productivity or even to cure jet lag. Digital lighting based on light-emitting diodes — LEDs — offers the opportunity to flit beams delicately across stages like the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge — creating a light sculpture more elegant than the garish marketers’ light shows on display in Times Square, Piccadilly Circus and the Shibuya district in Tokyo. 

“Up till now we only thought — do I have enough light to see,The solarlantern is specially designed for wind-solar hybrid street light system.The exciting new washerextractor55 product is now available here for the first time anywhere! to clean my room, to cut a diamond?" said Ed Crawford, a senior vice president of Philips Lighting Americas. “Now it impacts what I do, how I feel, in emotional ways.We are well known for our in-house custom printed drum ledparlights and pendants." 

Energy efficiency is only the beginning,In this video we demonstrate three different types of home made electricity cleaningmachiness. according to experts on the lighting innovations. Take communication between lights. At the University of California, Davis, a bike path illuminated at night with a “just in time" system has one light node alerting another and another down the line as a bicycle goes by, progressively lighting the rider’s way, then dimming back into an energy-saving mode. 

Michael Siminovitch, director of the California Lighting Technology Center at the university, said that with the new technology “we’re going to be able to create a variety of control features in terms of how we introduce points of light in space, but we’re also going to be able to do it with planes and areas of light." For example, he said, there could be light-generating ceilings or walls. 

Engineers like Maxik at Lighting Science are now imagining cities that light their streets as needed, without benefit of lampposts. He has created a fixture that could replace the reflective medians in highways south of the snow belt. Once installed along the road’s centerline, they provide as much illumination as streetlamps. The metal and wiring that go into the streetlamp would be unnecessary.