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Thursday, October 30, 2014 Trail Times
Provincial Kamloops
Students watch year’s worth of work crash and burn THE CANADIAN PRESS KAMLOOPS - A year’s worth of hard work and fundraising efforts by a group of students from Kamloops have gone up in flames with the spectacular explosion of a commercial rocket bound for the International Space Station. Just six seconds after liftoff Tuesday evening, the rocket launched from the Orbital Sciences Corp.’s complex in eastern Virginia exploded, destroying a payload of equipment that included the experiments of students from across North America. On board was a microgravity experiment developed by four boys who attended McGowan Park elementary school in Kamloops last year and are now in Grade 8. Paul Hembling, the project co-ordinator for the KamloopsThompson school district and principal of Bert Edwards Science and Technology
School, left a meeting just in time to watch the liftoff and explosion. “The first thing I thought was, ‘I want my $25,000 back,”’ Hembling said of the money he and others in the school district raised to help pay for the opportunity to have their students’ creations head to space. “We basically paid $25,000 to pay for that explosion to launch our experiment along with 17 others from all other U.S. jurisdictions,” he said with a chuckle, adding McGowan Park was the only Canadian school involved in the flight. The experiment was designed to examine how space impacts the growth of crystals, and Hembling said it involved silicon tubes, 17 centimetres long and 0.9 centimetres in diameter. Two separate solutions were inside the tubes and were separated by clips, he said. Once the experiment was aboard the
space station, the astronauts were supposed to remove a clip, allowing the solutions to mix and the crystals to form, Hembling said, noting a similar experiment was to take place on Earth at about the same time. The experiment was supposed to return to earth in about 12 weeks, at which time the students could compare the results. The students hypothesized the structure of the crystals formed in space would be different, Hembling said. A summary of the experiment also proposed that unique materials could be created on Earth if scientists could better understand the formation of solids from liquids in space. It also said scientists would get a better understanding of how fluid mixing and crystal formation works in microgravity. Hembling said he hopes the explosion won’t mean the end of the experiment
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and that there will be another opportunity for the project. The cost was for the transportation of the materials by rocket to the space station, not the silicon tubes and clips, he said. Raising the money proved to be a halftime job for Hembling, who also had to write a proposal and apply on behalf of the school district to get a spot on the flight. In the end, the students still learned a lot from their involvement, he said. “Nobody got hurt, there was a huge explosion, lots of flames and the boys can say, `I have been involved in a NASA disaster.’ What’s not to like from a boy’s perspective?” Kieren O’Neil said in an email to The Canadian Press that he was one of the students who spent the last year designing the experiment and was watching the launch when the explosion occurred. “We feel bad for everyone involved,” he said, adding that he’s been told the project will still happen. Flames could be seen shooting into the sky as the sun set. There was no hint of any trouble until the rocket exploded. Orbital Science
reported that everyone at the site had been accounted for, and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities. “We will understand what happened - hopefully soon - and we’ll get things back on track,” Orbital Sciences’ executive vice-president Frank Culbertson told his team an hour after the failure. “We’ve all seen this happen in our business before, and we’ve all seen the teams recover from this, and we will do the same.” Tuesday was the second launch attempt for the mission. Monday evening’s try was thwarted by a stray sailboat in the rocket’s danger zone. The restrictions are in case of just such an accident that occurred Tuesday. Hembling said the project was important because it engaged students. “We need to engage kids in science to make the learning real for them and to make the learning relevant,” he said. “I can’t think of anything that is with more purpose or more real than having a NASA astronaut carry out your designed space experiment on the International Space Station.”
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THE CANADIAN PRESS VANCOUVER - A group of landowners has launched a B.C. Supreme Court challenge to the province’s approval of the $7.9 billion Site C dam on the Peace River. The Peace Valley Landowner Association says that besides that judicial review, it will file a second case next week in Federal Court in an attempt to quash the federal government’s approval of the dam. Association president Ken Boon says both approvals are flawed and that recommendations of a joint review panel were not considered by either level of government. Boon says many members of the association have lived in the Peace River Valley for years and aren’t prepared to allow the remainder of the land to be destroyed by the creation of an 83-kilometre reservoir. Two weeks ago, provincial and federal governments announced their approvals for the massive project, saying any environmental impacts are justified though B.C. has yet to make a final decision on Site C. A joint review panel report released in May concluded the dam would cause significant adverse effects on fish, other species and plants though BC Hydro said last week that construction could begin in 90 days.
Burnaby
Group vows to stop survey crews THE CANADIAN PRESS BURNABY, B.C. - A group calling itself the Caretakers is vowing to stop survey crews from accessing a Metro Vancouver conservation area that is the focus of energy giant Kinder Morgan for its preferred route for a
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pipeline expansion. The company issued 48-hour notice to the City of Burnaby last Friday, saying it plans to continue survey work on Burnaby Mountain for the proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. The city has already tried to block that work from proceeding, but a National Energy Board ruling last week granted Kinder Morgan access to the site. The city announced this week that it will appeal the board’s ruling. The Caretakers group says it expects survey crews will arrive at Burnaby Mountain today, and members intend to block them by occupying the space where the work is supposed to occur.
Greater Trail Community Justice Program Society
Annual General Meeting
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Landowners to fight Site C dam
8450 Green Gables Road, Trail Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm (250) 364-1910 wkanimalhospital.com
Date: Thurs, November 13, 2014 Time: 7 pm Location: Trail & Greater District RCMP Detachment, 3601 Laburnum Dr., Trail, BC V1R 2S9 Please come join us. To RSVP call 250-368-5620