Dextre heads to the ISS!

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven blasted into orbit Tuesday on what was to be the longest space station mission ever, a 16-day voyage to build a gangly robot and add a new room that will serve as a closet for a future lab.

The space shuttle roared from its seaside pad at 2:28 a.m., lighting up the sky for miles around as it took off on a multinational flight involving Canada and Japan.

It was a rare treat: The last time NASA launched a shuttle at nighttime was in 2006. Only about a quarter of shuttle flights have begun in darkness.

"Good luck and Godspeed, and we'll see you back here in 16 days," launch director Mike Leinbach radioed to the astronauts right before liftoff.

"Banzai," replied Endeavour's commander, Dominic Gorie, using a Japanese exclamation of joy. "God truly has blessed us with a beautiful night here, Mike, to launch, so let's light them up and give Him a show."

They did. The shuttle took flight with a flash of light, giving a peach-yellow glow to the low clouds just offshore before disappearing into the darkness.

Shortly after liftoff, the astronauts had to deal with alert messages regarding their ship's steering thrusters. Then for unknown reasons, the cooling system had to be switched from the primary to backup line. NASA said it was looking into the problems.

Gorie and his crew face a daunting job once they reach the international space station late Wednesday night. The astronauts will perform five spacewalks, the most ever planned during a shuttle visit.

The launching site was jammed with Canadians and Japanese representing two of the major partners in the international space station.

The Canadian Space Agency supplied Dextre, the two-armed robot that was hitching a ride aboard Endeavour, while the Japanese Space Agency sent up the first part of its massive Kibo lab, a storage compartment for experiments, tools and spare parts.

Also on hand for the liftoff was a 19-member congressional delegation led by Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, whose district includes Johnson Space Center in Houston. He is pushing for increased NASA funding.

For the first time since space station construction began nearly 10 years ago, all five major partners were about to own a piece of the orbiting real estate. The launch of the first section of Kibo, or Hope, finally propelled Japan into the space station action.

"Our Japanese people have been waiting for a very long, long time," said Yoshiyuki Hasegawa, the Japanese Space Agency's station program manager.

"With this flight I believe that we finally became a real partner of the (space station) project, not just one of the members on the list, after 20 some years of effort in the project," said Keiji Tachikawa, head of the Japanese Space Agency.

Work on the space station project began in the mid-1980s, with preliminary design work for Kibo (pronounced KEE'-boh) starting in 1990. Space station construction, however, was stalled over the years for various reasons, most recently the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

The main part of the Kibo lab will fly on the next shuttle mission in May, with the final installment, a porch for outdoor experiments, going up next year.

Altogether, the Japanese Space Agency has invested about $6.7 billion in the space station program, including a Kibo control center near Tokyo.

Canada's $200 million-plus Dextre, meanwhile, is designed to eventually take over some of the more routine outdoor maintenance chores from spacewalking astronauts.

Dextre, short for dexterous and pronounced like Dexter, will join the space station's Canadian-built robot arm, already in orbit for seven years.

In addition to working with their international payloads, Endeavour's astronauts will try out a caulking gun and high-tech goo on deliberately damaged shuttle thermal tile samples.

The test — part of NASA's ongoing post-Columbia safety effort — should have been performed last year, but was put off because of emergency space station repairs.

Astronaut Garrett Reisman will stay behind on the space station until June, swapping places with a Frenchman who accompanied Europe's Columbus lab into orbit in February.

A Japanese astronaut is also part of Endeavour's all-male crew.

Endeavour's countdown was the smoothest in years, officials said. Shortly after liftoff, however, the astronauts had to deal with a couple of problems that ended up being minor. They got alert messages for some of their ship's steering thrusters, but it turned out to be a bad electronics card. Then the primary cooling system failed, and they had to switch to the backup.

A cursory look at the initial launch images — fewer than usual because of the nighttime launch — showed only one significant loss of debris from the external fuel tank 83 seconds into the flight. But it appeared to miss the right wing.

In any event, Endeavour will be checked thoroughly in orbit for any potential damage, standard procedure ever since the loss of Columbia because of a foam strike.

"This is just a wonderful beginning to what's going to be a long and challenging mission for us," said LeRoy Cain, a shuttle manager who gave the final "go" for launch. "But we're really looking forward to it and we're ready to go, ready to get to work on orbit."

It is the second of six planned shuttle missions this year, all but one to the space station. NASA faces a 2010 deadline for finishing the station and retiring its shuttles.

Check out the article at Fox News.

Cool stuff! Man, do I need a Dextre at home!

Arctic Sea Monster!

The fiercest reptile ever to terrorize the oceans has been identified from a fossil on a frozen Arctic island.

The huge pliosaur, dubbed "The Monster" by its discoverers, dated from 150 million years ago and boasted 60 dagger-like teeth the size of cucumbers, which it used to rip chunks out of prey.

The 50-foot animal was one of the biggest marine predators to have ever swum and would have been able to take on "anything that moved" in the water.

It was built for speed and power, and with its armory of fangs would have been rivaled in ferocity only by an extinct shark, the megalodon, which lived about 16 million years ago.

Fossilized remains of the pliosaur, which had 10-foot-long jaws, were located on the island of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, inside the Arctic Circle.

It was one of 40 fossil creatures found close together on a mountain on Spitsbergen by a team of mainly Norwegian researchers from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum.

Jørn Hurum, who led the expedition, compared the animal to a "medium-sized blue whale with a three-meter-long crocodile skull."

It was twice as big as a killer whale.

The pliosaur, a type of short-necked plesiosaur, was the leading marine predator during the Jurassic Period and is thought to represent an unknown species.

Its body was designed to minimize drag while its enormous flippers propelled it forward in a motion like flying through the water.

A front flipper from "The Monster" was measured at almost 10 feet long.

Fossil bones from the specimen excavated last summer showed that it was almost 50 per cent bigger than the largest confirmed pliosaur, Kronosaurus, from Australia.

An ichthyosaur, another marine predator, from 210 million years ago has previously been identified as being 75 feet long. but its teeth were much smaller than the pliosaur's and it would have chased much smaller prey.

"The pliosaur was much, much fiercer," said Hurum. "The ichthyosaur would have been an oversized fat dolphin by comparison. This animal would have taken chunks out of anything that moved. It was the fiercest marine reptile and the biggest of its era. Its teeth and jaws could crush almost anything."

Dr. Patrick Druckenmiller, a plesiosaur specialist at the University of Alaska Museum, was involved in the discovery.

"Not only is this specimen significant in that it is one of the largest and relatively complete plesiosaurs ever found," said Druckenmiller, "it also demonstrates that these gigantic animals inhabited the northern seas of our planet during the age of dinosaurs."

In 2002 a fossil pliosaur from Mexico was nicknamed the Monster of Aramberri, amid claims that it was up to 65 feet long. However, the measurements have yet to be confirmed.

Angela Milner, associate keeper of paleontology at the Natural History Museum in London, said the find illustrated how different the world was when the animal ruled the seas.

"Svalbard was not so near the North Pole 150 million years ago — there was no ice cap and the climate was much warmer than it is today."

She added: "There are a few isolated bones of huge pliosaurs already known, but this is the first find of a significant portion of a whole skeleton of such a giant."

It has been suggested that the Loch Ness Monster could be a long-necked plesiosaur.

Skeptics, however, have pointed out that the loch is 10,000 years old, whereas plesiosaurs are thought to have died out 65 million years ago.

Check out the article at Fox News.

Sweet! That would be one kick-ass show at Sea World!

The End is Near!

Scientist have nailed down how and when the Earth will cease to exist.

The sun will slowly expand into a red giant, pushing the Earth further out into space, but not far enough.

Our home planet will be snagged by the sun's outer atmosphere, gradually plunging to its doom inside the fiery stellar furnace.

"The drag caused by this low-density gas is enough to cause the Earth to drift inwards, and finally to be captured and vaporized by the sun," explains astronomer Robert Smith of the University of Sussex in southern England.

Previous projections had all figured that the Earth would avoid falling into the sun, even during our star's red-giant phase.

The good news: This won't happen for another 7.6 billion years.

The bad news: Life on Earth will end long before then.

In fact, we've only got a billion years left before the slowly expanding sun boils off the oceans and reduces our planet to an uninhabitable cinder, says Smith.

That may sound like a long time, but in fact life on Earth's been around a lot longer than that — a total of 3.7 billion years, according to the latest estimates.

For those first three billion years, true, we were nothing but pond scum. Still, the new figures indicate the long story of life on our fair blue-green planet may be entering its last act.

Is there any way our future descendants can save themselves? Why, yes, explains Smith.

He cites a recent study emanating from the University of California, Santa Cruz. It proposes taming an asteroid to swing by the Earth every few thousand years, slowly nudging the Earth into higher solar orbit, enough to outpace the sun's own outward growth.

"This sounds like science fiction," says Smith. "But it seems that the energy requirements are just about possible and the technology could be developed over the next few centuries."

Check out the article at Fox News.

Holy crap does that sound like a bad day!

Target Practice?

U.S. Officials Plan to Shoot Down Satellite

WASHINGTON — Taking a page from Hollywood science fiction, the Pentagon said Thursday it will try to shoot down a dying, bus-size U.S. spy satellite loaded with toxic fuel on a collision course with the Earth.

The military hopes to smash the satellite as soon as next week — just before it enters Earth's atmosphere — with a single missile fired from a Navy cruiser in the northern Pacific Ocean.

One of the main goals of the satellite's destruction is to prevent any sensitive equipment from falling into the wrong hands.

"We are worried about something showing up on e-Bay," defense and intelligence expert John Pike said, adding that breaking up the satellite's pieces lessens the chance that sensitive U.S. technology could wind up in Chinese hands.

"What they have to be worried about is that a souvenir collector is going to find some piece, put it on e-Bay, and the Chinese buy it," said Pike, who is director of the defense research group GlobalSecurity.org.

The dramatic maneuver may well trigger international concerns, and U.S. officials have begun notifying other countries of the plan — stressing that it does not signal the start of a new American anti-satellite weapons program.

Military and administration officials said the satellite is carrying fuel called hydrazine that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it hits the ground.

That reason alone, they said, persuaded President Bush to order the shoot-down.

"That is the only thing that breaks it out, that is worthy of taking extraordinary measures," said Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a Pentagon briefing.

He predicted a fairly high chance — as much as 80 percent — of hitting the satellite, which will be about 150 miles up when the shot is fired.

The window of opportunity for taking the satellite down, Cartwright said, opens in three or four days and lasts for about seven or eight days.

"We'll take one shot and assess," he said. "This is the first time we've used a tactical missile to engage a spacecraft."

Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey discounted comparisons to an anti-satellite test conducted by the Chinese last year that triggered criticism from the U.S. and other countries.

"This is all about trying to reduce the danger to human beings," Jeffrey said. "Specifically, there was enough of a risk for the president to be quite concerned about human life."

There might also be unstated military aims, some outside the administration suggested.

Similar spacecraft re-enter the atmosphere regularly and break up into pieces, said Ivan Oelrich, vice president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Scientists.

He said, "One could be forgiven for asking if this is just an excuse to test an anti-satellite weapon."

A key issue when China shot down its defunct weather satellite was that it created an enormous amount of space debris.

"All of the debris from this encounter, as carefully designed as it is, will be down at most within weeks, and most of it will be down within the first couple of orbits afterward," said Jeffrey. "There's an enormous difference to spacefaring nations in ... those two things."

He and others dismissed suggestions that this was simply an attempt by the U.S. to flex its muscles, and that officials were overstating the toxic fuel threat.

Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.

If the missile shot is successful, officials said, much of the debris would burn up as it fell. They said they could not estimate how much would make it through the atmosphere.

They said the largest piece that would survive re-entry would be the spherical fuel tank, which is about 40 inches wide — assuming it is not hit directly by the missile.

The goal, however, is to hit the fuel tank in order to minimize the amount of fuel that returns to Earth, Cartwright said.

A Navy missile known as Standard Missile 3 would be fired at the spy satellite in an attempt to intercept it just before it re-enters Earth's atmosphere.

It would be "next to impossible" to hit the satellite after that because of atmospheric disturbances, he said.

Known by its military designation US 193, the satellite was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor.

Software associated with the Standard Missile 3 has been modified to enhance the chances of the missile's sensors recognizing that the satellite is its target. The missile's designed mission is to shoot down ballistic missiles, not satellites.

Other officials said the missile's maximum range, while a classified figure, is not great enough to hit a satellite operating in normal orbits.

"It's a one-time deal," Cartwright said when asked whether the modified Standard Missile 3 should be considered a new U.S. anti-satellite technology.

He said that if an initial shoot-down attempt fails, the military would have about two days to reassess and decide whether to take a second shot.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told reporters that analysis shows the hydrazine tank would survive a fall to Earth under normal circumstances, much as one did when the space shuttle Columbia crashed.

"The hydrazine which is in it is frozen solid, as it is now. Not all of it will melt," he said.

If the tank hits the ground it will have been breached because the fuel lines will have broken off and hydrazine will vent out, he said.

Jeffrey said members of Congress were briefed on the plan earlier Thursday and that diplomatic notifications to other countries were being made by the end of the day.

"It should be understood by all, at home and abroad, that this is an exceptional circumstance and should not be perceived as the standard U.S. policy for dealing with errant satellites," said House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton.

Check out the article at Fox News.

If you're interested in getting a look at this satellite before we blow it out of the sky, it will be easy to see with the unaided eye. Just go check out the Satellite US 192 page at Heavens-Above.com for more info. I'm kinda hoping I can catch a glimpse of the explosion... provided I don't get a close-up view of any falling debris!

Mardi Gras 2008

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Clarinetist Pete Fountain, dressed in a tunic as one of King Arthur's knights, looked frail but happy Tuesday morning as he led 100 members of his Half-Fast Walking Club onto Uptown streets in what has become New Orleans' unofficial opening of Mardi Gras.

"Oh, I'm feeling fine. You always feel fine on Mardi Gras," said Fountain, 77. He's had health problems since Hurricane Katrina, but still plays two days a week at a Gulf Coast casino.

Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday - is the often raucous end to the pre-Lenten Carnival season. The celebration characterized by family friendly parades uptown and in the suburbs - and by heavy drinking and lots of near-nudity in the French Quarter - is highlighted by 12 days of parades and parties.

Temperatures were expected to rise to about the record of 81 degrees in New Orleans, an indicator that flesh-flashing in the bawdy French Quarter was likely to be greater than usual.

While much of the county cast ballots in party primaries, the presidential race inspired some revelers to don costumes with political themes. Kim Disselliss, 49, simply taped a sign to her back that depicted Sen. Clinton dressed up as George Washington and read, "Monica Lewinsky's X-Boyfriend's Wife for President. 2 for 1 Sale."

While the walking club was on its way, floats of the Zulu parade headed for their starting point. Zulu, the black community's oldest parade, was to be followed by the Rex parade, with businessman John E. Koerner III reigning as Rex, King of Carnival and Monarch of Merriment.

Rex would be followed by hundreds of gaily decorated truck floats, many created by families and neighborhood Carnival clubs. Police expected the last floats wouldn't reach the end of the parade routes until late afternoon.

In suburban Jefferson Parish and elsewhere in south Louisiana, revelers lined up on parade routes or set up family picnics.

In Cajun country, costumed riders on horseback set out on their annual Courir du Mardi Gras, a town-to-town celebration. Hundreds of people registered for the Courir de Mardi Gras in Eunice, a bayou community 150 miles west of New Orleans. Hundreds were on horseback and scores of others rode along in pickup trucks or on flatbed trailers.

"It's just heritage. It's Louisiana. We're crazy," said Courir participant Cody Granger, 24, wearing what looked like surgical scrubs decorated with the New Orleans Saints' logo.

In a sign that New Orleans has yet to recover fully from the hurricanes of 2005, this year's King Zulu, businessman Frank Boutte, is still living in Houston because Katrina's flooding damaged his Lakefront home. Still, the Zulu parade was up to pre-storm standards, with 1,200 riders on 27 floats.

Zulu was being led by Mayor Ray Nagin, riding on horseback and clad as an Indian in buckskins and a white headdress.

Cathy and James Pavageau (PAH-vuh-go) of Metairie, setting up a tent in the median of St. Charles Avenue - the city's main parade route - said they thought the crowd was a bit bigger than it has been recently. Arriving at 6 a.m. let them get spots closer to Lee Circle in the past two years, but not this year, they said.

They expected about a dozen people to join them for the climax of a celebration marred this year by shootings that have injured nine people.

"We worry. But what can you do?" Pavageau said. "You can't just stay in your house. We just pray everything is OK."

Only sporadic violence has marred the celebration. At least eight people had been wounded by gunshots, five of them on Saturday.

Police said 1,100 officers, state troopers and National Guardsmen have been positioned along parade routes since the season began.

Check out the article at The Advocate.

We went and saw Spanish Town in Baton Rouge on Saturday, then Thoth and Bacchus in New Orleans on Sunday. Crowds are starting to come back to NOLA, which is a good sign!

Happy Mardi Gras!

One Wild Ride!

Chalk up another honor for the LSU football team and its fiery, gambling coach Les Miles.

This time it’s the Louisiana Sports Writers Association doing the honors — choosing Miles and his national championship team for the organization’s 2007 Headliner of the Year Award.

When Baton Rouge native Ron Higgins, president of the Football Writers Association of America, presented Miles with the FWAA national championship trophy during a recent celebration at Tiger Stadium, Higgins said Miles proved a nice guy can win the national championship.

Miles, however, does not completely endorse the “nice guy” label.

“I prefer nice guy, but tough football coach,” Miles said. His players would agree.

“He’s really just as tough as coach Saban on the field,” said tailback Jacob Hester, referring to Alabama coach Nick Saban, whom Miles replaced in 2005 when Saban went to the Miami Dolphins. “He’ll get on you, especially the offensive linemen. But you can go up and talk to him more easily.”

Miles started the 2007 off-season by calling out Alabama with an expletive at the Bayou Bash signing day party. He later apologized for his language. By July, he was poking fun at the Pacific-10 conference. As the season finally started, he was just getting warmed up.

The Tigers, who entered the season No. 2 in the nation to Pac-10 power Southern California, started out on fire, rolling by Mississippi State 45-0, No. 9 Virginia Tech 48-7, Middle Tennessee 44-0 and No. 12 South Carolina 28-16. Miles beat South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier at his own game by calling a fake field goal with holder Matt Flynn tossing a no-look lateral over his shoulder to kicker Colt David, who sprinted in for the touchdown. Spurrier nodded accordingly as if to say, “You got me.”

After struggling briefly with Tulane before winning 34-9, the Tigers moved to No. 1 in the nation in the Associated Press poll during a regular season for the first time since 1959.

Then Miles stepped into a phone booth — or a cellular store these days — and came out as the “Ohio Gambler”. Five times, “Vegas” Les went for it on fourth down, including another fake field goal, and made it five times in a thrilling 28-24 win over No. 9 Florida.

“I didn’t just go out and risk everything,” Miles said. “They were all calculated calls. We had good plays in mind. We didn’t just go for it.”

The nation began to notice Miles, Hester, who converted three of those fourth downs, and the Tigers, who went to No. 1 across the board. A setback followed at Kentucky in a 43-37 triple overtime loss when a fourth-and-2 failed.

But good fortune smiled on Miles and the Tigers a week later against Auburn when Flynn found Demetrius Byrd for the winning touchdown on a 22-yard pass play that ended with one second on the clock in a 30-24 victory. The Legend of Les grew.

A week later, LSU defeated Alabama’s Saban at his own game. With the score tied 34-34 and less than two minutes to play, Chad Jones’ safety blitz forced a fumble by Tide quarterback John Parker Wilson that the Tigers recovered at the Alabama 3. Moments later, Hester scored from the 1 for a 41-34 victory and an 8-1 record.

However, the magical season appeared over for some with a 50-48, triple overtime loss at home to Arkansas in the regular season finale the day after Thansgiving.

But Miles and his team had saved their best act for last.

The morning of Saturday, Dec. 1, was a dark one in the LSU Nation. But little did everyone know that a “perfect storm” was brewing.

That day, many thought the Tigers had only a Southeastern Conference title to play for when they were facing Tennessee in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome. And on ESPN Game Day program that morning, Kirk Herbstreit reported that Miles would become head coach at his alma mater, Michigan, on Monday.

LSU, however, had struck a deal with Miles the night before and he agreed to stay. An announcement was forthcoming before the game with Miles set to discuss it more after the game against the Vols. Because of Herbstreit’s incorrect report, Miles had a rare pre-game news conference. And the rest is history.

“There was misinformation on ESPN, and I think it was imperative that I straighten it out,” Miles began. “I got a championship game to play. And I’m excited about the opportunity of my damn strong football team to play. And it’s really all I’d like to say. Please ask me after. I’m busy. Thank you very much.

“Have a great day.”

Miles and his team went on to defeat Tennessee, 21-14, for the SEC title.

With LSU on the airplane ride home, the “perfect storm” hit: Oklahoma defeated top-ranked Missouri and lowly Pittsburgh stunned No. 2 West Virginia.

A day later, LSU rose from No. 7 to No. 2 in the BCS rankings, setting the stage for the national championship game against Ohio State in the Superdome, just 87 miles from Tiger Stadium.

The denouement had a rocky start as LSU trailed the Buckeyes 10-0 in the first quarter, but that proved to be a microcosm of the LSU season. The Tigers trailed South Carolina and Tulane early on before winning. They also trailed Florida, Auburn and Alabama by 10 points in the third period before victory.

“I think this team is full of grown men,” Flynn said. “Full of guys who’ve been there. Guys that never say quit. We’d been down by 10 before. We knew we’d come back.”

He was right. The Tigers scored 31 straight points en route to a 38-24 triumph.

Miles ended that night like a college kid, though, on a Bourbon Street balcony lifting the national championship trophy to the masses.

“This is our trophy,” Miles said at the Tiger Stadium celebration. “This is the state of Louisiana’s championship.” And he didn’t want it to stop.

“That trophy should be carried around the state like the Stanley Cup,” he said.

Check out the article at The Advocate.

What an awesome season! The Championship Celebration was a lot of fun, despite the cold weather... it was definitely worth going to cheer on those guys one last time! Congratulations, Tigers!

Incidentally, more former LSU players will play in Super Bowl XLII than any other college! Now, that's saying something! With LSU's 5 players, that totals 20 former SEC players in this Sunday's match-up!

Messenger reveals new side of Mercury!

January 16, 2008—The first of many planned images from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft is showing astronomers a side of Mercury no one's ever seen before.

Mercury is tough to view from Earth, since it's so close to the sun. And when the Mariner 10 probe flew past the innermost planet in 1974 and 1975, only one side of the body was facing sunlight.

That's because Mercury rotates three times during every two orbits, so the same side of the planet is lit up every other time it is nearest to the sun—including during all of Mariner's flybys.

Added up, these factors have meant that although Mercury sits only about 57 million miles (92 million kilometers) away from Earth, for more than 30 years scientists have had almost no details about its other face.

But on Monday MESSENGER, the first mission to Mercury since the 1970s, snapped the first image of the "missing" half of the rocky world.

Among many new sights, the picture features the full Caloris Basin, a huge impact basin more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) across that sits on the border between the known and previously unknown regions of the planet.

More unprecedented images of the tiny planet are expected as the MESSENGER craft completes three flybys of Mercury before settling into orbit in March 2011.

From that point on, writes astronomer Phil Plait on the Bad Astronomy blog, "we'll get as many images of this tiny, hot, battered, dense and neglected planet as we can handle."

Check out the article at National Geographic News.

Awesome new photos! I can't wait to see the map of Mercury once Messenger gets settled into orbit!

Tigers Win 2008 BCS Championship!

NEW ORLEANS — A second-line saunter to a championship for LSU, just like the Tigers scripted it.

A déjà vu nightmare for Ohio State, just as the Buckeyes feared.

The LSU Tigers played 14 games this season and could never completely escape their mistake-marked habits.

Who cares? The Tigers’ flawed but fabulous image is reflected in the crystal ball of the BCS national championship trophy, their second in five years.

As at no time before in LSU’s football history, the Tigers are the nation’s preeminent program. From hurricane-battered Boothville to Bastrop, LSU fans can thump their chests and say, truly, no one does it better than their beloved Tigers.

Generations will be born into this state and ask of us one day, “Tell me, grandpa. Tell me when the Tigers were the best there was.”

This is that time.

Ohio State, more than anyone, has to live with what is for the Buckeyes an ugly truth. A year after being destroyed by Florida in the inaugural BCS title game 41-14, the Buckeyes came here riding a year-long crusade of redemption. They didn’t find it. The 38-24 beating inflicted by LSU wasn’t quite as lopsided as what Florida wrought, but it brought no joy or relief to the scarlet and gray.

The SEC rules. The Big Ten got schooled. Again.

Of course, this being LSU, the Tigers had to make a couple of blunders just to get the blood flowing. After Ohio State running back Chris “Beanie” Wells bolted for a BCS championship game-record 65-yard touchdown run just 1:26 into the game, LSU’s first possession ended with Matt Flynn falling on a shotgun snap at the Tigers’ 6 after center Brett Helms sent the ball flying when Flynn came up to change the play. Freshman punt returner Chad Jones fumbled away a punt return that teammate Harry Coleman scooped into his chest at the LSU 16. Timeouts were burned needlessly as the Tigers couldn’t get plays off in time.

And LSU fell behind 10-0 in the first quarter, giving Ohio State a huge injection of confidence to start the game.

All part of the uncanny Les Miles plan, folks. All part of the plan.

Slowly, inexorably, momentum made a seismic shift to the LSU side of the Superdome. Having defensive lineman Ricky Jean-Francois back after a season-long suspension was a huge plus for LSU in its SEC Championship Game victory over Tennessee. Jean-Francois played an even bigger role in this game, helping the Tigers impose their will on the Buckeyes and turn the game in the second quarter.

With the score tied 10-10, defensive MVP Jean-Francois planted offensive guard Ben Person in the turf and reached out to block Ryan Pretorious’ 38-yard field-goal attempt with his meaty right hand. LSU recovered at its 34 and marched relentlessly for a touchdown, offensive MVP Matt Flynn finishing it with one of his best passes of the year, a perfect 10-yard lob to Brandon LaFell in the back of the end zone.

Ohio State was playing catch-up the rest of the night. Maybe it was that fabled SEC speed, but the Buckeyes couldn’t ever get the Tigers back in their grasp.

Don’t be too hard on Ohio State though.

As the song asks, “Hold That Tiger?”

Right now, no one can.

Check out the article at The Advocate.

What a dominating performance! I'm so proud of these guys! Enjoy it while you can, Tiger fans... we have 25 seniors on the way out and everyone will be gunning for us next year. Bring 'em on!

BCS Gameday

When historians look back on the crazy, unpredictable college football season of 2007, they might conclude it featured the most memorable season in LSU history.

The Tigers blew out opponents early, reached No. 1 in the polls after five games, played five down-to-the-wire Southeastern Conference games, lost only in triple overtime — twice — and stayed on the national map throughout the calendar year.

There’s one more game — No. 2 LSU (11-2) plays No. 1 Ohio State (11-1) for the BCS national championship on Monday — but even an unfinished season has experts and old-timers struggling to find a more compelling season involving the Tigers.

“It’s been an amazing year,” said LSU senior associate athletic director Herb Vincent, a former sports information director at the university.

Playing its first Thursday night ESPN game, LSU was the network’s season opener after its “25-hour countdown to kickoff” leading into the Tigers’ 45-0 victory Aug. 30 at Mississippi State. LSU’s next game, a 48-7 thrashing of Virginia Tech on ESPN, put a convincing stamp of legitimacy on its preseason No. 2 ranking and its national championship hopes.

Seven appearances on CBS, an LSU record that matched an SEC record, gave the Tigers even more exposure.

“I think this year there has been more visibility for Louisiana State University than at any other time in its history,” LSU Athletic Director Skip Bertman said.

Bertman coached LSU baseball teams to five national titles. He said there’s nothing to compare to a season like the one enjoyed by the 2007 LSU football program.

“You can win some baseball titles and get some national press or go to the Final Four and get some national press, but this football team has been on CBS seven times, and CBS has much higher ratings than ESPN,” Bertman said.

“These games were amazing, going into overtime or going down to the last play. Nobody’s seen anything like this.”

Statistics provided by CBS Sports show 64 percent of U.S. households have wired cable television, and another 22 percent have an alternate delivery system — primarily satellite.

Fourteen percent have neither, receiving most of their television over the air.

As an over-the-air network, CBS put LSU football into a lot of living rooms where people don’t have access to ESPN or pay-per-view options.

“I’d say millions of people saw LSU that didn’t see LSU before,” Bertman said, “or at least got to know LSU better because of the constant visibility on television.”

That is one of the attractions of the CBS television contract with the SEC, Commissioner Mike Slive said.

“Anyone with rabbit ears can get the SEC on CBS,” Slive said.

The SEC had three teams in the national championship conversation — Florida and LSU early, Georgia late. LSU was the only one from start to finish.

With that setup, CBS had its best college football ratings since 1999 and was the sport’s only network to show a ratings gain in 2007.

“If you have a team or teams that remain in the national championship hunt all season, it’s going to have a pretty big impact on your ratings,” said Mike Aresco, senior vice president of programming for CBS Sports.

LSU had five appearances on CBS in 2003, when the Tigers went on to win the BCS national championship. The seven appearances in 2007 set a school record.

“Normally, we cap our appearances at six,” Aresco said. “LSU’s seven this year included the SEC Championship Game. Alabama had seven in a regular season (2005), but there were some unusual circumstances.

“Nobody’s had more than seven.”

LSU had the benefit of extra exposure well before the 2007 season began.

Its 41-14 thumping of Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl gave the LSU brand high visibility to open the calendar year. Having four players selected in the first round of the NFL draft in April — including No. 1 pick JaMarcus Russell — gave LSU more attention.

LSU coach Les Miles kept the Tigers on the sports front page and among sports radio talking points in the summer when he said USC had an easier road than LSU to the national championship game.

Then the Tigers routed Mississippi State and Virginia Tech on national television. National columnists said LSU made a convincing case for itself as the No. 1 team in the country.

LSU’s 1-2 punch to start the season left a lasting impression.

“I think that played a significant role in where we were and where we stayed (in the polls) throughout the season,” Vincent said.

“It had a lot to do with us not falling very far when we lost to Kentucky and with keeping us in a position to get back to No. 1 again.”

Michigan’s 0-2 start — beginning with its shocking loss at home to Appalachian State — began the season-long talk about Miles being a candidate to succeed Lloyd Carr as coach of the Wolverines.

Then came the dramatics and highlight-video moments of the heart of LSU’s conference schedule.

A 2:34 p.m. kickoff for a home game against South Carolina denied LSU a chance to play a Saturday night game in Tiger Stadium, but it helped keep the program in heavy rotation on “SportsCenter” and other highlight shows.

Matt Flynn, the holder on placement kicks, casually tossed the ball over his right shoulder to Colt David to begin the most enjoyable fake field goal of the season. David sprinted to the corner of the end zone, foiling Steve Spurrier and helping LSU win, 28-16.

“How many people saw that over-the-shoulder flip to Colt David who may not have seen it had that been a night game?” Vincent said. “Everybody saw it. They played it over and over and over because it happened early in the day.”

Florida, the reigning national champion, played LSU in Tiger Stadium in prime time on CBS. The network had its eye on that game long before the season.

“LSU was a terrific team last year, and but for those two tough losses could have been a national championship contender,” Aresco said. “Everybody saw what they did against Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, so they were a team on our radar screen from the beginning.”

Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation, gave the approval for an October prime-time game. The network had previously reserved only September games for Saturday night prime time, before the fall lineup of entertainment shows, or games in late November (such as with Florida vs. Florida State).

“It turned out to be wonderful for us,” Aresco said, “as we had one of the really great games of the season — or any season. There were the five fourth downs LSU made, and there was tremendous drama. It was a great game.

“It was a calculated risk, and it really worked out well.”

Late in the season, Bertman laughed about the perception that Miles was a gambling coach with a reckless style revealed in that victory against Florida.

“No. 1, he was close enough on those five plays to consider going for it,” Bertman said. “People don’t give you credit for that. No. 2, he picked the right guy to handle the ball, and No. 3, he picked the right play and the weakest part of the defense to run it against.

“When you put the three things together, it isn’t so astonishing that he made them all.”

No matter. The Mad Hatter was the talk of college football after the Florida game and after Flynn’s touchdown pass to Demetrius Byrd to defeat Auburn with the now-famous 1 second showing on the Tiger Stadium clock.

Between those games, LSU lost in triple overtime at Kentucky, losing its No. 1 ranking. The Tigers had become No. 1 after a less-than-sparkling 34-9 victory at Tulane thanks to Stanford’s upset of USC on the last weekend in September.

By extending to three overtimes, the LSU-Kentucky game ended in prime time and saw a spike in CBS ratings near the end.

The SEC signed its deal with CBS in 1994, and the network began televising games in 1996. That came after CBS lost the rights to NFC football and Major League Baseball.

Aresco said the partnership keeps getting better for CBS.

“The SEC has become far more of a national package than it was when we first began doing it,” Aresco said. “We felt it was a very strong conference when we did this deal years ago and that it could carry a package itself. It generated huge ratings in the Southeast, but we knew the ratings outside the region obviously wouldn’t be quite as strong.

“It still does enormous ratings in the region, but because of the BCS and because of all the drama and all the attention focused on the BCS, people from all around the country are taking an interest in the games who might not have in the past. I think we’re seeing it become a truly national package.”

Florida helped by winning the national championship last season. Arkansas running back Darren McFadden finished second in the Heisman Trophy race in 2006.

Florida quarterback Tim Tebow won the Heisman this season as a sophomore. McFadden finished second again. LSU has a chance to win the national championship.

Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno will be an early Heisman candidate in 2008, as will Tebow. LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux could figure in the mix.

The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships — Spurrier, Phillip Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer — and another, Tommy Tuberville, who coached a 13-0 team that didn’t get to play for the title in 2004.

Miles could become the conference’s fifth coach with a national title.

“I think I can say this categorically: You have probably the greatest roster of coaches that any conference has ever assembled,” Aresco said.

Another dramatic ending for LSU, its 41-34 comeback victory at Alabama, was another CBS game that benefited from a juicy storyline: Saban coaching the Crimson Tide against his former team for the first time.

After losing in triple overtime to Arkansas the day after Thanksgiving, LSU was seemingly out of the national championship picture. The Tigers entered the SEC Championship Game as less of a ratings draw as a result.

That changed on the morning of the game. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit cited an unnamed source in saying Miles would soon be the next coach at Michigan.

Miles called an unprecedented news conference before the game and called the report “misinformation.” He went on to say throughout the day and night he would remain as coach of the Tigers.

LSU defeated Tennessee 21-14 for the SEC championship. After Pitt upset No. 2-ranked West Virginia and Oklahoma knocked off No. 1-ranked Missouri, the possibility of LSU climbing from No. 7 in the BCS to No. 2 was suddenly on the table.

“Even at the most important time,” Vincent said, “when people were trying to rank the teams on that Saturday night, what had been on TV all day long? Les Miles, Les Miles, Les Miles.”

Columnists and analysts said the all-day LSU talk-a-thon kept the Tigers’ visibility high.

“It’s the same old adage, ‘Say what you want about us, but spell our name right.’ This year, probably more than any other, was about exposure in a bizarre year,” Vincent said.

Bertman, looking at the season from the perspective of a former coach, said nobody could question LSU’s effort. He insists the Tigers were more consistent than their reputation.

“You can play well and win,” Bertman said. “You can play well and lose. You can play poorly and win. You can play poorly and lose.

“We played well for every quarter except that first half of the Tulane game. We’ve made penalties and missed tackles, but we’ve played hard.”

The final chapter will be written — and nationally televised by Fox — Monday night.

Check out the article at The Advocate.

More eyes will be upon the LSU Tigers tonight than have ever been before... this is our chance to really shine!

To whet your appetite, check out this vid:

GEAUX TIGERS!

Merry Christmas 2007!

Christmas Eve 2007 - Mars with the Full Moon in tow
photo by Renegade

GRAMERCY — The Gramercy Volunteer Fire Department has been on more than 150 calls this past year, but few if any were actual fire emergencies.

“Some years we have no fire calls,” Gramercy Fire Chief David Detillier said. “Other years we have three or four.”

Christmas Eve was a different story.

Detillier, his crew and firefighters from other departments kept a careful watch as more than 130 Christmas Eve bonfires burned atop the Mississippi River flood protection levee in the St. James Parish communities of Gramercy, Lutcher, Paulina and Convent.

Detillier said his Fire Department was mainly concerned about the ones within the Gramercy city limits.

“We’re going to have to watch about 40 fires tonight,” Detillier said before the bonfires were lit. “Most will burn themselves out by about 10 p.m.”

If Detillier’s attitude toward the bonfires seems nonchalant, it’s only because the ritual lighting of bonfires atop the Mississippi River levee is a longtime Christmas tradition in St. James Parish.

Thousand of visitors began flooding into the river communities at 5 p.m. Monday to jostle for best position to watch the 7 p.m. lighting of the tall pyramid-shaped bonfires.

Once the fires are lighted, a stream of cars, trucks, vans, buses and motorcycles cruises past the bonfires to take in the entire spectacle of the burning conflagrations.

Many residents along River Road opened their homes to the visitors and served a variety of gumbos, including red bean, seafood, and chicken and sausage.

Detillier said he conferred with the Lutcher and Paulina fire chiefs earlier in the day and determined the bonfires posed no hazard to nearby homes.

The chiefs recommended to Parish President Dale Hymel Jr. that it was safe to light the fires.

“As long as we have a north wind, it’s not usually a problem,” Detillier said.

Many residents, mostly those under the age of 7, believe the bonfires burn on Christmas Eve to light the way for PaPa Noël, the river parish version of Santa Claus.

University of Louisiana at Lafayette folklorist Marcia Gaudet says there is historical evidence to suggest the bonfire tradition harkens back to at least pre-Civil War days.

“It’s interesting that the tradition is mainly practiced in St. James Parish,” Gaudet said. “I think the French Maraist priests in Convent helped to preserve the tradition.”

Gaudet, in her 1984 study “Tales from the Levee: the Folklore of St. John the Baptist Parish,” speculated that the students of the Maraist priests of Jefferson College (now Manresa Retreat House) carried the custom to their hometowns.

Detillier said that even though the bonfires are not supposed to be lighted until 7 p.m., there is always one group that jumps the gun.

“They put diesel fuel on these things and then a firework or something goes astray and bam, one of the bonfires is lighted early,” Detillier said.

Does Detillier, a firefighter with more than 25 years experience, believe the fireworks story?

His response was tongue in cheek. “Well, that’s what they say.”

Check out the article at The Advocate.

Hope you caught that awesome astronomical display last night! The full moon was bright, and so was Mars... or was that Rudolph? Check the photo above, which I snapped around midnight.

Merry Christmas... and don't forget the reason for the season!

Manned Asteroid Mission?

Here we are, nearly eight years into the 21st century, and the most spectacular manned mission NASA can pull off is a trip to the International Space Station, a mere 210 miles above the Earth. Even the most ambitious part of NASA's current plans for human spaceflight involves visiting a celestial body we've already been to: the moon. Astronauts, space buffs and an unimpressed public hunger for space exploration that's more dramatic, more heroic, more new. Something like, say, landing astronauts on a distant rock hurtling through space at 15 miles per second.

That's exactly the kind of trip NASA has been studying. In fact, scientists at the space agency recently determined that a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid would be possible using technology being developed today. The mission wouldn't be easy. A crew of two or three would spend months riding in a cramped spacecraft before reaching their barren, nearly gravity-free target. That such a mission is even being considered, though, says a lot about the versatility of NASA's next fleet of spacecraft and the ambitions the agency has for them. If nothing else, it's a signal that space exploration could soon get much more exciting.

The Allure of an Asteroid

This wouldn't be our first trip to an asteroid. We've been visiting them by proxy for years now, using unmanned space probes. In 2000 NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft arrived at 433 Eros, which a century earlier became the first near-Earth asteroid known to man; five years later, the Japanese Hayabusa probe touched down on asteroid 25143 Itokawa.

Yet unmanned probes have their limitations. NEAR Shoemaker and Hayabusa gathered a good deal of data, but we still don't know the exact composition and internal structure of the asteroids they visited. And although Hayabusa was designed to collect two small samples from Itokawa, it's doubtful the probe will actually have anything onboard when it returns in 2010.

Humans, however, could be much more effective. Unlike robots, we adapt to our environment in real time. "We spend weeks at a rock with a Mars rover, trying to determine what it is," says Rob Landis, an engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center and one of the co-leaders of the mission feasibility study. "An astronaut could make that determination in a matter of seconds."

A human crew could travel across an asteroid more intelligently than a robot, making it easier to deploy scientific instruments, collect samples, and zero in on the areas of greatest interest. "No doubt, on a human mission we would characterize an asteroid better than we ever have," says Bruce Betts, director of projects for the Planetary Society.

Plenty of characterization needs to be done. While most asteroids are a safe distance from Earth (in an approximately 190-million-mile-wide expanse between Mars and Jupiter), Jupiter's gravitational tug and, less often, collisions between asteroids can kick these objects into orbits that pass uncomfortably close to Earth. The 270-meter-wide asteroid 99942 Apophis, for example, will pass within roughly 24,000 miles of Earth in 2029, and could come back for a direct hit in 2036.

And if we're to have any hope of deflecting asteroids, we need to know a lot more about them than we do now. First off: What, exactly, are they made of? Measurements taken by Hayabusa indicate that 40 percent of Itokawa's volume is empty space. If some asteroids are truly this porous, that's helpful information for any plan to destroy or deflect an Earth-bound object.

Averting the apocalypse isn't the only reason to study near-Earth asteroids, though. They could be floating gold mines for future deep-space expeditions. Preliminary observations suggest that some asteroids are rich in useful minerals and, better yet, frozen water—the most valuable resource a space traveler could hope to find. If water could be extracted from asteroids, it could not only be used for drinking, but also broken down into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel. "It might be an ultimate way to get to Mars," Landis says.

Check out the article and the slideshow at Popular Science.

Just image the resources that could be discovered and the knowledge that would be gained by this venture. Truly exciting stuff!

Christmas Came Early...

2007 SEC Champions!
Les Miles is NOT going to Michigan!
LSU will play in the 2008 BCS Championship!

BATON ROUGE -- Fresh off an SEC Championship game victory, the LSU football team knew it was going to New Orleans for a January bowl game. But, few thought the stars would re-align and the Tigers would face off with Ohio State for the Bowl Championship Series National Championship on Jan. 7.

After beating Tennessee, No. 7-ranked LSU looked forward to possibly facing undefeated Hawai'i in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

However, key upsets of No. 1 Missouri and No. 2 West Virginia while the Tigers were at 35,000 feet en route to Baton Rouge from Atlanta Saturday night sent the Delta charter flight into a frenzy, as the team found they may have a shot at the title despite two triple-overtimes losses in the regular season.

Two of the other five teams ahead of LSU in the BCS standings didn't win their conference's division -- Kansas and Georgia -- while LSU beat another by 41 -- Virginia Tech. The pollsters and computers thought the Tigers' resume was too good to miss out on the BCS National Championship Game.

LSU's computer average was No. 2, while it's BCS average was .9394. Ohio State's was .9588. Virginia Tech finished third in the BCS (.8703), Oklahoma was fourth (.8572) and Georgia rounded out the Top 5 (.8392).

LSU (11-2), which was ranked No. 1 twice during the season, was ranked No. 2 in the Bowl Championship Series standings released live on FOX Sunday evening. The Tigers were ranked No. 2 in preseason polls.

Ohio State (11-1), champions of the Big Ten, haven't played since defeating Michigan on Nov. 17. However, the Buckeyes watched as four teams ahead of them in the Nov. 18 polls -- LSU, Kansas, West Virginia and Missouri -- each lost over the next two weeks.

LSU season ticket holders requested more than 60,000 tickets to the BCS National Championship game this year. The school's 16,000-ticket allotment will mostly be distributed by LSU Priority Points.

The Tigers and Buckeyes have met twice on the gridiron, first with a 13-13 tie in 1987 in Baton Rouge before Ohio State won 36-33 in Columbus in 1988.

LSU has won National Championships in 1958 and 2003 -- beating Oklahoma 21-14 in the New Orleans Superdome on Jan. 4, 2004.

Bowl Championship Series Games

• Sugar Bowl - Hawaii vs. Georgia
• Rose Bowl - USC vs. Illinois
• Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma vs. West Virginia
• Orange Bowl - Virginia Tech vs. Kansas
• BCS Championship Game - LSU vs. Ohio St.

LSU HEAD COACH LES MILES QUOTES:

“I would like to thank the voters and those people who are responsible for allowing us to play in this great game. We are humble by the selection. We will honor that game with our finest effort.”

“How it unfolded certainly could not have been scripted. We had a very difficult Saturday (last week) against Arkansas. We go to the championship game and fight and scrape to win the conference. Low and behold, No. 1 and No. 2 fall and it becomes a very talented LSU team that is voted into the game. We are excited and honored to have the opportunity. We will play a great Ohio State team that is very talented and well coached.”

Check out the article at LSU Sports.

Chrsitmas has come early for the LSU Tigers and fans! We won the SEC Championship, kept our head coach (Les Miles), and managed to squeak into the National Championship game! We'd better take care of business, because we've used up all of our luck!

Of course there will be the anti-BCS crowd whining about the decision and how a 2-loss LSU team doesn't belong, but it makes total sense if you look at the numbers, which no other team can come close to matching:

• SEC Champions -- The toughest conference in the nation
• Outright SEC Western Division Champs
• Posted an 11-2 mark, the third straight year LSU has won 11 games
• Beat school-record 6 top 20 teams, including 2 wins over top 10 teams
• Didn't lose a game in regulation (only 2 losses came in triple overtime by a total of 8 points)
• Beat No. 5 Virginia Tech, 48-7
• Beat 9 bowl-eligible teams
• 7 of 11 wins came against SEC teams
• Twice ranked No. 1 in the nation

I'm curious how many first-round draft picks will be coming out of LSU. We have a number of players who will be there, including Glenn Dorsey, Craig Steltz, Matt Flynn, and Jacob Hester. Speaking of Jacob Hester, check out this devastating hit he made in the SEC Championship game...

When the train is coming, get off the tracks!

Geaux Tigers!!!