Word: speeding
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...weather, an unknown flight-control failure and perhaps the crew's inability to respond is probably to blame. The pilots' margin for error at the time was small; in addition to encountering bad (but not extreme) thunderstorms, the plane was operating near its "coffin corner" - a combination of speed and altitude at which it becomes difficult to maintain stable flight...
...might Flight 447 have been flying at the wrong speed? The latest theory is that one of its three Pitot tubes - external sensors used to measure airspeed - iced up, leading to an inaccurate reading. That would have shut down the aircraft's autopilot - one of those 24 messages indicated that had occurred - and compelled the flight-control computer to shift more responsibility to the pilots. Turbulence would have further whittled away at their safe-speed range. "They might have slowed down inadvertently and flown into a stall," says Hans Weber, an aviation-safety expert at Tecop International...
...proportion of days just under the "blue sky" cutoff has decreased in Beijing. Whether that's a sign that the numbers are more accurate, or merely better gamed, is still unclear. The city's hot, humid summers and occasional sandstorms mean that air quality can turn bad with surprising speed. Without real-time reporting, the official data are more a matter of historical interest. This afternoon the Ministry of Environmental Protection reported the air pollution index for the 24 hours ending at noon on Friday was 159, or "slightly polluted." That's still pretty bad. But had you gone outside...
...about half the altitude at which the Apollos flew. The ship will be fairly stuffed with scientific instruments, one of the most important - if least sexy sounding - of which will be its laser altimeter. The altimeter will bounce laser beams off the lunar surface and, by measuring the speed at which they reflect back up, calculate the moon's topography to within inches. That's critical since long-term lunar stays require finding not only hospitable places to land, but also hospitable places to establish a home. (See the space moon race...
...LCROSS will lag behind, spending four months in a sweeping orbit that will carry it around both Earth and the moon; throughout its flight, it will remain attached to its upper stage rocket, separating from it only during its final approach to the moon. The rocket stage will then speed ahead, aiming for a deliberate crash in one of several craters in the south lunar pole in which the LRO's sensors will have detected signs of water ice. The collision will send a debris plume as high as 6.2 miles (10 km) into space and the LCROSS itself, trailing...