Sorry about that. But here’s a few  tips that might help:

1) Take as little as possible with you, and have carry-on baggage
only. Wear slip-on shoes and good socks. Wear good supportive
undergarments for what’s going to come next.

2) Even if there are no signs, like they have in liberal Boston, tell the TSA agent you decline to pass through the full-body radiation scanner. Agree to the pat down, and here’s the most important part: DECLINE the offer to have the search done in private. Have them do it in full public view and make sure that people are watching you. Engage your searcher in conversation and do so in a voice that’s loud enough for others to hear.

3) Here’s a line you can use to help break the tension: When you
refuse the body scan and they try to talk you out of it by saying your
only other choice — if you want to get on the plane — is to submit
to a body pat-down that many consider invasive, say ‘OK,’ then take a
quick look around, nod your head in the direction of the hottest ‘bod
there and ask: ‘Can he do it?’

4) Think of the pat down as a free massage. If the agent touches your
genitals, get her name and file a report.

5) When it’s over, be sure to thank your masseuse for her time and
wish ‘em all a Happy Thanksgiving.

6) Carry a screw-top drinking container and fill it up at the first
water fountain you see.

“Irradiating monkeys would be one giant leap backward for NASA,” the group’s director of research policy Hope Ferdowsian said in a statement. “The proposed experiments are cruel, unnecessary, and lack scientific merit. There are better, more humane ways of understanding the potential dangers of interplanetary travel to humans. Scientific progress can only proceed with a strong ethical foundation.”

The petition claims that the research violates severalmandates of the agency’s “Principles for the  Ethical Care and Use of Animals” report.

“Genetic, physiological, and anatomical differences between humans and monkeys dramatically limit the conclusions that can be drawn from the planned experiments,” the petition states.

“Ongoing studies, including those funded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy, already use nonanimal methods to determine the effects of low-dose radiation on human tissues,” Ferdowsian wrote.

The group also questions the need for this type of research, claiming that “Interplanetary human travel is, at best, a highly speculative aim for the foreseeable future. It is obviously fraught with many dangers and enormous expense, while serving goals that are not at all clear. To put animals through radiation tests now in anticipation of such an enterprise is in no way justified.”

A NASA competition to stimulate commercial space projects has a winner — Masten Space Systems of California is being awarded the top $1 million prize for demonstrating a lunar lander. 

The race literally came down to the wire, reports the California-based X Prize Foundation, which oversaw the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge for NASA, part of the agency's Centennial Challenges program. 

Over the weekend, teams gathered in Mojave, Calif., for the last round of flights. The remote-controlled vehicles had to fly for at least three minutes and make precision touchdowns on rock-strewn landing pads at least 50 meters away. 

Masten was the underdog. Armadillo Aerospace of Texas had already won the first round of the competition last year and qualified for the top prize in September. 

Masten's Xoie rocket landed closer to the bull's eye than Armadillo's Scorpius, achieving an average landing accuracy of 19 cm compared to Armadillo's 87 cm. Armadillo, which is owned by id Software founder John Carmack, picks up a $500,000 second-place prize. 

Judges gave Masten an extra day to refly its rocket after a fire broke out and damaged the vehicle during its first attempt. That prompted a polite but pointed outcry from Carmack, who wrote:

"For the past couple weeks, as it became clear that Masten had a real shot at completing the Level 2 Lunar Lander Challenge and bettering our landing accuracy, I have been kicking myself for not taking the competition more seriously and working on a better landing accuracy.  If they pulled it off, I was prepared to congratulate them and give a bit of a sheepish mea culpa.  Nobody to be upset at except myself. We could have probably made a second flight in the drizzle on our scheduled days, and once we had the roll thruster issue sorted out, our landing accuracy would have been in the 20-centimeter range.  I never thought it was worth investing in differential RTK GPS systems [as Masten did], because it has no bearing on our commercial operations.

"The current situation, where Masten was allowed a third active day of competition, after trying and failing on both scheduled days, is different.  I don't hold anything against Masten for using an additional time window that has been offered, since we wouldn't have passed it up if we were in their situation, but I do think this was a mistake on the judges' part.

"I recognize that it is in the best interests of both the NASA Centennial Challenges department and the X Prize Foundation to award all the prize money this year, and that will likely have indirect benefits for us all in coming years.  It is probably also beneficial to the nascent New Space industry to get more money to Masten than Armadillo, since we have other resources to draw upon.  Permit me to be petty enough to be upset and bitter about a half-million dollars being taken from me and given to my competitor.

"The rules have given the judges the discretion to do just about anything up to and including awarding prize money for best effort if they felt it necessary, so there may not be any grounds to challenge this, but I do feel that we have been robbed.  I was going to argue that if Masten was allowed to take a window on an unscheduled day with no notice, the judges should come back to Texas on Sunday and let us take our unused second window to try for a better accuracy, but our FAA waiver for the LLC vehicle was only valid for the weekend of our scheduled attempt."

An awards ceremony is taking place this morning at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. 

NASA doesn't yet know why its Ares 1-X test rocket was dented upon splashdown in the Atlantic following what appeared to be a flawless two-minute demonstration flight on Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. When divers arrived to retrieve the booster, they found a significant dent at the bottom of the booster. No word yet on whether all three of the newly designed parachutes worked as planned — NASA lost television coverage after the first chute opened. The booster was picked up by a NASA ship and will arrive back at Port Canaveral later Thursday. Let the analysis begin …  Credit: Spaceflightnow.com 

Update: NASA confirmed that one of the Ares 1-X parachutes deflated, causing the booster to impact into the ocean faster than expected, likely causing the damage to the rocket casing. Space shuttle program managers say the problem won't impact the planned Nov. 16 launch of space shuttle Atlantis. The Ares rocket is based on a shuttle solid rocket motor, but the parachute system is completely different, says NASA's space flight chief Bill Gerstenmaier.

The problem appears to be with unexpected voltage signals or
a device that measures voltages, reports the Arizona Daily Star.

Engineers are working on software fix, but no word yet on
when NASA may try to resuscitate the spacecraft. MRO, which has produced detailed,
unprecedented maps of the Martian surface, completed its prime science mission
and has been being used to help scout landing sites for the Mars Science Lab, a
roving geology station planned for launch in 2011.

The Ares 1-X booster is outfitted with more than 700 sensors
to measure temperatures, pressures, vibrations, acoustics — just about
everything you can think of — during the two minutes and four seconds that the
rocket motor will burn. That data needs to be relayed to ground stations real
time, so NASA implemented a new flight rule to prevent what is called “triboelectrification.”   Apparently flying through clouds
containing ice or precipitation can generate a static electric charge that can
degrade radio signals. In addition to the data collected during flight, triboelectrification
can interfere with communications range safety officers need to detonate
explosives on the rocket should it begin to veer off course and threaten
populated areas.

The space shuttles are not susceptible to
triboelectrification and most expendable rockets have protective coatings that
make the issue moot.

NASA also was battling a more common type of electric charge
on Wednesday.  Storms passing
through the area Tuesday night triggered more than 150 lightning strikes within
five miles of the Ares launch pad. The team spent the first part of the morning
meticulously checking over the rocket’s systems to make sure there was no
damage.

By about 9 a.m., the team was ready to fly, but despite the
blue skies, concerns about static electric charging is keeping Ares grounded.

To make up for budget shortfalls, NASA delayed development, postponing the rocket’s debut until at least 2017, according to the advisory panel which was tapped to come up with options for the U.S. human space program.

By then, the International Space Station will have been removed from orbit, though the panel also recommended funding the station through at least 2020. Unfortunately for Ares 1, additional funding for station likely would delay Ares’ debut another couple of years.

“I think there is argument that it was a sensible program to begin with. There is a real question as to whether it’s a sensible program today ,” said space review panel chairman Norm Augustine. “The (schedule) slippage has caused a mismatch between what Ares 1 is needed for and what it’s going to be able to do.

“It’s very useful to be told that you’re on a track that you don’t have enough money to stay on, and we can continue down, but I think … a few years from now there will be a group back here saying ‘What happened?’” he added.

The favored option appears to be a public-private partnership, with NASA kicking in about $5 billion to jump-start development of commercially operated space taxis. The proposal is sure to rankle members of Congress representing districts that have work tied to the existing Constellation program.

The report was delivered on Thursday to NASA and the White House.

1-X is really NASA's opening salvo in a bid to return astronauts to the moon. There's some competition for the job. Buoyed by the findings of a presidential-appointed space review panel, which is due to issue its final report on Thursday, commercial companies are game to take on the task of flying people into space, at least as far at the space station anyway. 

The symbolism of the shuttle Atlantis on one pad and the Ares 1-X on the other was hard to miss. The shuttle is being prepared for a station resupply mission in November, one of the last six flights before the fleet is retired. 

Astronauts assigned to fly on Atlantis were in town to participate in a practice launch countdown, but NASA bumped their flight a few days and rescheduled the dress rehearsal to focus on next week's Ares 1-X flight. The crew did some emergency evacuation training and spoke briefly with reporters at the launch pad, Atlantis behind them and Ares 1-X just north.

"In between this vehicle and that, we’ve spent quite a few
years where we’ve had vehicles that are planned, vehicles that are on
PowerPoint. We talk about doing it, but we never end up bending metal," said astronaut Randy Bresnik, one of the Atlantis crewmembers.

"Well there it," he said, pointing at Ares. "We built this vehicle. It's  ready to fly and that is just a pretty awesome thing for us, the American
people, to see."

(Dreams, hopes riding on Ares 1-X test vehicle. Credit: SpaceflightNow.com) 

“It’s right now a small, internal Lockheed Martin project on
looking at various launch technologies,” said Slater Voorhees, project lead for the
firm’s Advanced Programs.

Saturday’s launch from New Mexico’s budding Spaceport
America was the third test flight of the vehicle. Voorhees declined to release
the name of the project. UP Aerospace of Colorado, which operates a suborbital
launch rail system at the spaceport, handled the flight under contract for
Lockheed.

Test flights began in 2007 and the project is expected to
continue for the foreseeable future. 
Voorhees said it is not intended as a prototype for a crew-carrying
vehicle. Rather, the project appears to be aimed at military and other space
operators’ growing demand for quick and inexpensive launch services.

Flying from the still-under-development commercial spaceport
provides a way for Lockheed to test non-traditional launch systems and support
services, bypassing time-consuming and labor-intensive practices that may have
become obsolete due to technological advances, yet remain requirements for
launching on government ranges.

The Lockheed project reportedly involves a reusable,
fly-back booster that takes off like a rocket and lands like an airplane.

“It’s just looking at new ways to do lean, responsive
operations: How do we make a launch system more operational, leaner, less
man-power? How do we provide more launch availability?” Voorhees said. “We’re
looking at how to advance launch technologies.”

The prototypes are about 2.4 meters (8 feet) long, with a
wingspan of about 1.8 meters — about one-fifth the size the intended
full-scale spacecraft. During a
debut flight in December 2007, the spacecraft reached an altitude of about
3,000 feet. A second flight occurred in August 2008 though the craft lost
control after reaching an altitude of about 1,500 feet and was damaged.

(Lockheed Martin's prototype winged spacecraft takes off on a second test flight in August 2008. Credit: Lockheed Martin.) 

What looks like NASA's Orion capsule, costs about the same
as an Orion capsule but isn't made of metal? Why that would be NASA's Composite
Crew Module, a structural prototype commissioned by NASA to determine if there
would be any advantages to using new polymers to fabricate its planned
replacement for the retiring space shuttles.