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Researchers analyzed 1 million measurements taken by aircraft flying over oil and gas sites across the country. They determined that about 3% of the natural gas produced in the U.S. is escaping into the atmosphere.

That's a staggering 6.2 million tons of methane leaking every hour during the daytime. This wasted gas is worth around $1 billion per year. But the true cost is even higher when you consider the damage to our atmosphere.

The study covered over half of all American oil wells and nearly a third of the nation's total gas production and delivery infrastructure. While more research is needed to calculate a precise national average, the 3% leak rate was consistent across the six regions examined.

“Very Sunny” means something very different in Denver (245 days with sun) than it does in Portland, Oregon (142 days with sun), even if there are no shade trees around the house. Therefore, consider the map below.

Given NASA and Boeing have been working for so many years together, and NASA already certified SpaceX's Crew Dragon successfully, Stich emphasized all players are familiar with the certification process and requirements. In fact, some items have been closed off already for Starliner-1: Stich estimated that 17 Starliner-1 requirements have been addressed, even before CFT lifts off on the debut astronaut space mission.

More spacecraft upgrades are already in store for future Starliner missions. For example, Stich said, Starliner-1 will feature improved software to fly to either port of the Harmony module on the ISS for docking operations (for the moment, it is approved to dock at the forward port only.)

Starliner-2, Nappi said, will fly improved oxidizer valves to address issues uncovered on the first uncrewed Starliner mission in 2019, called Orbital Flight Test 1. A new purge system will remove unneeded moisture from the valves, and some of the connector areas have been sealed as well to reduce moisture access.

Boeing's contract with NASA requires missions through Starliner-6. The first three missions are "in the process of being built", Nappi said, while the last three missions have nearly all parts in stock. (A selection of parts are on order.) Atlas V launch vehicles are all being readied for those six flights, too.

When asked if Boeing would consider flying private missions like SpaceX does, for customers like Axiom Space and billionaire Jared Isaacman's Polaris Program, Nappi said NASA's requirements come first. Assuming Boeing meets those expectations, "I think we may start looking at some of the private astronaut missions."

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — The new Starliner spacecraft is "go" for its first-ever astronaut launch on Monday (May 6), Boeing and NASA officials announced today (May 3).

Barring bad weather or any last-minute technical issues, Starliner was cleared to send two veteran NASA astronauts and former U.S. Navy test pilots to the International Space Station (ISS). On board this mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will be commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams.

The duo are completing last-minute training items and quarantining here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center ahead of their historic liftoff, which is scheduled for Mondauy at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT on Tuesday, May 7) from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Coverage will run live here on Space.com, via NASA Television.

"We had the launch readiness review, and everyone polled 'go' to proceed," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said during a press conference today.

CFT will not only be the first time that Boeing's Starliner carries astronauts, but also the first time that United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket takes on that task. Rollout of the stacked rocket will take place tomorrow (May 4).

Pending the success of CFT, Boeing will join SpaceX in sending operational, six-month-long crewed missions to the ISS. Both companies received commercial crew contracts from NASA in 2014, with Boeing's valued at $4.2 billion back then, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion.
SpaceX has since launched 12 crewed missions to the ISS, including a test flight in 2020, while Starliner's first crewed effort has been delayed by several issues. The Boeing vehicle's first uncrewed flight to the ISS, which launched in December 2019, failed to reach its destination due to technical glitches. The pandemic, and the need to address the issues that arose on that first flight, delayed Starliner's second uncrewed test flight until May 2022. That effort was successful, reaching the ISS and meeting all of its other major objectives.

CFT was then slated to launch in 2023 — until more critical issues were uncovered, such as problems with the capsule's main parachutes and flammable tape on the capsule's wiring. These issues are behind the team, everyone has emphasized, and CFT is ready to go. If this first astronaut flight goes well, the debut operational crewed mission of Starliner should follow in 2025.

NASA and Boeing teams conducted a flight readiness review for CFT last week. That analysis identified two issues that required more attention: a valve needed to be replaced at the launch pad, and engineers wanted to further study contingency scenarios for the jettisoning of Starliner's forward heat shield during reentry to Earth's atmosphere.

That work has now been completed to the teams' satisfaction, Stich said today.

Related: 1st Boeing Starliner astronauts are ready to launch to the ISS for NASA (exclusive)

Starliner-1, the capsule's first operational mission, is slated to send three astronauts to the ISS: NASA's Mike Fincke (who is also serving as a CFT backup astronaut), alongside NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.

But that is pending the success of CFT, which will see Williams and Wilmore take manual control of the spacecraft numerous times, test emergency procedures for power-up and communications, and otherwise put the Starliner spacecraft through its paces for future missions.

The vision from NASA is for SpaceX's Dragon, Starliner and Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to continue sending astronaut crews to the ISS for the next several years. A selection of NASA astronauts continue to use Soyuz for policy and backup reasons, and Russia has committed to sending crews aloft until at least 2028.

While Starliner is not manifested for private missions yet, Boeing will fulfill something like six or seven missions for NASA during the nominal lifetime of ISS to 2030. A handful of private space stations are in the works, so there may still be destinations for Starliner, Dragon and Soyuz after the ISS retires.

Tensions between the United States and Russia have intensified since the latter invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The Biden administration has sent Ukraine tens of billions of dollars in support.

Although the United States has about 1,000 troops in Niger, most are at another base, Airbase 201, about 500 miles from the capital.

As noted by Reuters, Airbase 201 was built by the United States at a cost of more than $100 million.

A bizarre "cosmic glitch" in the theory of how the gravity of the universe works may have been mended.

The strange glitch in Einstein's description of gravity in his theory of general relativity may explain some of the mysteries of how gravity works on a cosmic scale, according to a new paper in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

Einstein's theory of general relativity describes how gravity works across the cosmos, suggesting that gravity can impact the three dimensions of space, but also a fourth dimension: time.

The theory imagines the universe as a stretchy fabric called space-time. Every object with mass (like stars, planets, or even you) bends this fabric. The more massive the object, the more it warps the space around it. Think of setting a heavy ball on a stretched rubber sheet—the sheet dips around the ball.

In general relativity, gravity is not seen as a force acting at a distance—as Newton described it—but as the effect of the bending of space-time by mass. Objects move toward each other not because they are being pulled directly by some invisible force, but because they are following the curves in space-time created by their masses. For example, Earth orbits the sun not because it is being pulled directly by the sun, but because it is traveling along the curved space-time around the sun.

General relativity made predictions that were later confirmed by experiments and observations. For instance, it predicted the bending of light by gravity (gravitational lensing), the existence of black holes, and gravitational waves, which are ripples in space-time created by violent astronomical events.
However, there are some things that the theory cannot adequately explain.

"This model of gravity has been essential for everything from theorizing the Big Bang to photographing black holes," study co-author Robin Wen, a recent Mathematical Physics graduate at Canada's University of Waterloo, said in a statement.

"But when we try to understand gravity on a cosmic scale, at the scale of galaxy clusters and beyond, we encounter apparent inconsistencies with the predictions of general relativity. It's almost as if gravity itself stops perfectly matching Einstein's theory. We are calling this inconsistency a 'cosmic glitch': gravity becomes around one percent weaker when dealing with distances in the billions of light years."

Scientists have now come up with a new tweak to the theory that they hope explains some of these inconsistencies.

"Almost a century ago, astronomers discovered that our universe is expanding," study co-author Niayesh Afshordi, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Waterloo and researcher at the Perimeter Institute, said in the statement.

"The farther away galaxies are, the faster they are moving, to the point that they seem to be moving at nearly the speed of light, the maximum allowed by Einstein's theory. Our finding suggests that, on those very scales, Einstein's theory may also be insufficient."

Therefore, the new model should still explain the phenomena that general relatively works for, but also those that it cannot explain.

"Think of it as being like a footnote to Einstein's theory," Wen said. "Once you reach a cosmic scale, terms and conditions apply."

You may be familiar with the formula BTUH = CFM x ΔT x 1.08. This same formula is often rearranged to use for determining airflow by measuring the heat input and temperature rise.
CFM=BTUH/( ΔT x 1.08)

To get the BTU per hour (BTUH) with electric strips you use the formula: BTUH = volts x amps x 3.41 BTUH/watt

Together the formula looks like:
CFM = (volt x amps x 3.41)/ ( ΔT x 1.08)

The factor 3.41 comes from physics. It is the number of BTUs produced by one watt-hour of electricity. But where does the 1.08 factor come from? The "magic number" 1.08 is convenience factor. It is basically a bunch of math combined into one factor as a shortcut. You may recall that the specific heat formula is used for changing the temperature of something. The specific heat formula is:
BTU = weight x ΔT x Specific Heat

This has one big problem: we don’t measure airflow by weight, but by volume. AHRI Standard air weighs 0.075 pounds per cubic foot. We can convert a volume to a weight by multiplying the volume by 0.075 lbs/ft3. Another issue is that we tend to measure airflow by the minute and BTUs by the hour. You can fix that by multiplying times 60. Finally, we need the specific heat of air, which is 0.24. When you multiply the air volume by 0.075 to turn CFM into pounds per minute, multiply pounds per minute by 60 to get pounds per hour, and multiply by the specific heat of air 0.24, you end up with 1.08 (60 x .075 x 0.24 = 1.08). The number is not really a constant because the volume of the air varies a lot with temperature, which changes the "magic number."

This formula is accurate for dry air at around 70°F, but it is not accurate when the air temperature gets very much colder or warmer than 70°F. For example, 1.08 really does not work with flue gas or airflow in freezers because the air volume has changed, which changes the convenience factor. At 400°F the air only weighs 0.043 lbs/ft3. So the convenience factor changes to 0.62(60 x 0.043 x 0.24 = 0.62). At 0°F, a cubic foot of air weighs 0.086 lbs/ft3. This changes the convenience factor to 1.24 (60 x 0.086 x 0.24 = 1.24). The weight per volume also changes with elevation and humidity, although the change due to humidity is small. Even the specific heat changes as the air temperature changes, but again, the changes are small.

This is all to say that if you are dealing with air around room temperature, feel free to use the 1.08 convenience factor. However, if you are dealing with air at a much different temperature, you should look up the weight of air at the temperature you are working with. The table below lists the weight of a cubic foot of air at different temperatures so that you can perform correct air calculations at temperatures other than 70°F.

Temperature    Weight lb/ft3    Convenience Factor    Temperature    Weight lb/ft3    Convenience Factor
0°F    0.08625    1.24    175°F    0.06255    0.90
10°F    0.08441    1.22    200°F    0.06018    0.87
20°F    0.08265    1.19    225°F    0.05797    0.84
30°F    0.08096    1.17    250°F    0.05591    0.81
40°F    0.07935    1.14    275°F    0.05399    0.79
50°F    0.07780    1.12    300°F    0.05219    0.76
60°F    0.07631    1.10    325°F    0.05051    0.74
70°F    0.07487    1.08    350°F    0.04894    0.72
80°F    0.07349    1.06    375°F    0.04746    0.70
90°F    0.07217    1.04    400°F    0.04608    0.68
100°F    0.07089    1.02    425°F    0.04478    0.66
110°F    0.06965    1.00    450°F    0.04357    0.64
120°F    0.06846    0.99    475°F    0.04242    0.63
130°F    0.06730    0.97    500°F    0.04134    0.61
140°F    0.06619    0.95    525°F    0.04031    0.60
150°F    0.06511    0.94    550°F    0.03933    0.59

q = m ∆h

q = CFM x 0.075 lb/ft2 x 60 min/hour x ∆h

q = CFM x 4.5 x ∆h

CFM is ft3/minute

M is the overall mass flow rate of air

h is the Enthalpy (Btu/lb.)

According to Forbes, the average household in the U.S. pays $429.33 per month on utility bills. Although steep, you don’t have to pay over $400 a month for water and electricity. There are plenty of clever ways to cut your energy costs.

Installing heat pumps is a win-win for both households and the planet.

Eric Wilson, a senior researcher at NREL, told Canary Media, "If every American home with gas, oil, or inefficient electric-resistance heating were to swap it right now for heat-pump heating, the emissions of the entire U.S. economy would shrink by 5% to 9%."
For those interested in making the switch, Rewiring America offers a free service that provides an estimate based on your home's needs. There are also rebates available through the Inflation Reduction Act and tools to help you make the most of them. If you don't want to completely change your current heating setup, micro-heat pumps are an affordable supplement.

The bottom line is that the average household can make a significant impact, even when drawing from a dirty power grid.

"It's better to switch now rather than later," Wilson said, "and [avoid locking yourself into] another 20 years of a gas furnace or boiler."

[8' x 8' x 2' = 128 cubic feet = 4.74 cubic yards

1 cubic yard of dry sand weighs 2619 pounds. So you are talking about 12,416 pounds of sand. (4.74 x 2619 = 12,414)

The specific heat of sand is 830.

The specific heat of water is 4182.

So a pound of sand will hold about 20 percent what a pound of water will hold. (830/4182 = .198 = 19.8%)

A btu is defined as the amount of energy required to raise 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit. This tells us that to store one btu of heat, you would need to raise 5 pounds of sand by 1 degree Fahrenheit.

So, for each degree that you raise your 12,414 pounds of sand, you will be storing 2483 btus. (12,414/5 = 2483)

A single gallon of propane contains 91,500 btus. So, you would need to raise the temperature of your box of sand by 36 degrees to store the equivalent heat energy contained in a gallon of propane.