In news related to the James Doohan Memorial Spaceflight, the first Falcon 1 rocket successfully lifted off today (Friday), but was subsequently lost. A successful launch of that inaugural vehicle is a prerequisite for the flight carrying the ashes of Doohan and many other deceased individuals, which will also occur on a Falcon rocket.

"We had a successful liftoff and Falcon made it well clear of the launch pad, but unfortunately the vehicle was lost later in the first stage burn," said Elon Musk on the SpaceX Web site. "More information will be posted once we have had time to analyze the problem."

How this development affects the scheduling of Doohan's "Explorers Flight" is unclear. However, Charles Chafer, the CEO of Space Services Inc., published this statement on the Explorers Flight page:

"With the loss of Falcon 1 today (March 24), the SSI extended family congratulates SpaceX on an important attempt and expresses its confidence in the continuing mission of Space Exploration Technologies Inc. — to bring low cost space transportation services to the global community. We are ready and standing by with our secondary payload of Memorial Spaceflight participants for the next launch."

We will keep you informed on continuing developments. Once a launch date is set for the Explorers Flight, a public memorial for Doohan and other activities will be scheduled around it. More about the lost Falcon 1 is available at this Space.com article.

Translators Not "Universal" Yet, but Getting There

According to the world of Star Trek, in the mid-22nd century significant progress will be made in the development of a "universal translator" that will take previously unheard alien languages and instantaneously translate them for English-speaking Starfleet officers. That level of intelligent technology may be more than a century away, but the groundwork is certainly being laid today.

According to an article at MSNBC.com, the European Union is devoting millions of euros to language-software research & development, in hopes of cutting the costs of multilingualism. One grantee, Germany's Siemens, has developed software that recognizes spoken words and then utters a translation by patching together syllables pre-recorded by native speakers in several languages.

EU cash is also helping companies like Nokia develop cellphone software that translates and utters, in real time, dialog in English and Chinese.

You know how Starfleet officers can hear translations without any apparent ear-mounted devices, even on away missions? Well, get a load of this: DaimlerChrysler is perfecting ceiling-mounted "audio-beam" speakers that can shoot a cone of sound to specific areas, like single seats, in settings such as the United Nations. (May be crude by Star Trek standards, but it's a start!)

El-Baz Discovers Desert Crater, Weighs in on "Ark"

On the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Shuttlepod 05 was named the El-Baz ("Time Squared," "Transfigurations" and "Descent"), after Farouk El-Baz, a former NASA planetary geologist and currently a research professor at Boston University. El-Baz has made news in a couple of science stories recently.

Earlier this month, El-Baz and his colleagues at BU's Center for Remote Sensing announced they have discovered the remnants of the largest crater of the Great Sahara of North Africa. El-Baz identified the double-ringed crater — formed by a meteorite impact tens of millions of years ago — by studying satellite imagery. Approximately 31 kilometers in diameter, the crater previously escaped detection "because it is so large — bigger than the area of 125 football fields," El-Baz said. The crater's shape is reminiscent of the many double-ringed craters on the Moon, which Dr. El-Baz remembers from his years of work with the Apollo program. Because of this, he believes the crater will figure prominently in future research in comparative planetology. The entire article, with images, is available at this SpaceRef.com link.

As the director of the Center for Remote Sensing, El-Baz has also weighed in on another geological search of sorts. A researcher in Virginia is closely studying images taken by aircraft, intelligence satellites and remote-sensing spacecraft of a mountainside "anomaly" on Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey. While it could turn out to be merely a strange rock formation, Porcher Taylor of the University of Richmond wonders if it could be the remains of the fabled Noah's Ark. El-Baz, however, is skeptical.

"Image interpretation is an art," El-Baz said. "One has to be familiar with Sun lighting effects on the shape of observed features ... The feature that has been interpreted as the 'Ararat Anomaly' is to me a ledge of rock in partial shadow, with varied thickness of snow and ice cover." See for yourself at this Space.com link.