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Ten most hated people in the world







10) George W Bush:
 GW didn't create the mess we're in today; he just exacerbated it with his tax cuts for the wealthy, starting an unnecessary war when we were already involved in one because nine months into his presidency, he failed to learn anything about foreign policy and the intelligence agencies, that were in complete disarray. He deregulated the banks and credit card companies, unleashing a army of predatory lenders on unsophisticated consumers. Long depressing story short, he wanted to go down in history as a war hero, a Presidential hero, and the face of American hope to others. Instead he killed 100, 000, 000 people, wasted billions of dollars in tax money that we worked hard for, and put the orphan level in the world to an all-time high.


09) Miley Cyrus:
She is so annoying and nobody actually thinks that she is a good singer. She tries to raise her fame by making out with pretty much everyone she finds available! For the people who hate her, she's just grown up not changed. She is a good singer. What she's doing and how she does it obviously doesn't appeal to everyone.


08) Kim Kardashian:
 No talent in that family whatsoever. She is a very bad role model for kids, beauty and money aren't everything. The way she acts and treats life is sickening. Her porn video is what made her famous, before that she was Paris Hilton's maid. Drama is what she thrives on, and without it she would be boring. She is THE dumbest person ever witnessed.


07) Kanye Omari West:
 is an American rapper, songwriter, and fashion designer. He was born on June 8, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. He is just a small minded man, who in his own words believes he is the next "Jesus". He has little to no talent yet has the confidence to call his latest album 'the best album ever made'. If you ask me this man is rude, self-centered and a disgrace to modern pop culture. He's selfish, self-centered, and a horrible influence on children. He thinks everything should be about him, and he's always trying to take the spotlight away from everyone.

06) Joseph Stalin:
his "red terror" campaign, "great purge" and the infamous gulag death camps has killed millions of people. over 40 million Russian perished during his time (exclude world war-2).  Many historians and academia's regarded this man as "the greatest murderer" on modern history.



05) Barack Hussein Obama
He  is the 44th president of the United States of America. He was elected in 2008 after serving in the Senate from 2005-08, beating John McCain and becoming the first African-American to be elected President of the United States. He was elected again in 2012, beating Mitt Romney. Barack Obama eliminated Osama bin Laden, helped get rid of Qaddafi, was instrumental in advancement of gay rights, repealed don't ask don't tell, more people than ever have health care due to his actions, provided a stimulus package that saved the auto industry, is making gun purchases safer, normalized relations with Cuba, expanded hate crime protection, increased support for veterans, negotiated a climate change agreement, along with five other nations negotiated a nuclear arms reduction deal with Iran, which led to the release of four political prisoners this week and probably helped in the safe return of ten sailors who strayed into Irani waters.
04)Marian Rivera:
 Naturally, she is hated by the people, cause of her irksome attitude or approach, feisty yet annoyed. Many people are in the state of bewildered why she is a queen of primetime. A disputable and quarrelsome argument. Her smile is fake. She does charities for the cameras, and not really as a genuine concern. She gets into trouble most of the time for the little things that irritate her, bringing out her foul-mouthed tirades.





03) Osama Bin Laden:
He is a high level terrorist, hiding somewhere, He has done some bad thing. He is the reason why Muslims are hated to this day! He was the leader of al-Qaeda, the group that claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. For all we know, his death was faked and he is still out there somewhere. Wherever he is, I hope he gets what he deserves one day. And my heart goes out to the families of all those people that were in the attack. Those 200 people who were forced to jump to their deaths. And may the souls of the suicide pilots that flew those planes into the building forever stay in the deepest, darkest places of hell.


02) Adolf Hitler:
This man was an evil person, he caused the biggest and most unforgettable event in human history, WW2. Unbelievably sick, he murdered people who were "Different", he must've had a crazy mind. People will never forget him, and there will never be anybody like him, not one person. This man had made his mark in history. Responsible for more than 60 million people, A lot of families lost their sons, fathers, cousins & uncles because of this German maniac.
01)  Justin Bieber:
The person in the list of most hated people in the world on number one is none other than Justin Bieber. Justin Drew Bieber is a Canadian singer, song writer, and record producer. He was born on March 1, 1994. Justin is currently 22 years old and lives in Ontario, Canada (despite once claimed that he was Part-Indian) and he's Christian. He's the son of an author, Pattie Mellette.
More people have committed suicide since his rise to fame. 1994 was the worst year ever in history. Kurt Cobain died and this garbage singer was born.
He killed at least more people than Hitler because of his music.



CONCLUSION:
This list is made on the reviews of the people taken simultaneously. These 10 people are the most hated people in the world 2016. Some are ranked on their cruel work and others for destroying the lives of people. 

JFK's 'Moon Speech' Still Resonates 50 Years Later

 Fifty years ago today (Sept. 12), President John F. Kennedy whipped up support for NASA's fledgling Apollo program in a speech that contains perhaps the most famous words he ever uttered about space exploration.

Kennedy's stirring, soaring "moon speech," delivered at Rice University in Houston, laid out why the president believed sending astronauts to Earth's nearest neighbor by the end of the 1960s was so important. Kennedy had first aired that ambitious goal in May 1961, just six weeks after the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin became the first human to reach space.

The Rice speech marked a key moment in the trajectory of the Apollo program and space exploration in general, experts say.

"Clearly, it's important, because you've got a president who steps up and says we're going to do it, makes it a policy objective, makes it a budgetary priority and reaffirms that commitment," Roger Launius, space history curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, told SPACE.com. [Photos: JFK's NASA Legacy]

Kennedy's vision came true, of course. On July 20, 1969, late astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface. Four days later, he and his two Apollo 11 crewmates splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, wrapping up a huge victory for the United States over the Soviets in the Cold War space race.

'We choose to go to the moon'

Kennedy made the Rice speech during a tour that also stopped at Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center (now known as Johnson Space Center), the Launch Operations Center in Florida and Alabama's Marshall Space Flight Center — NASA sites that would be key to making Apollo a success.

The president wanted to give the Apollo program a boost and help explain to the nation why it should be such a high priority, said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University.

"There were controversies over how much money to put into Apollo, and, indeed, even whether to continue it," Logsdon told SPACE.com. "He wanted to indicate his strong support for the program, and this [speech] was the chance to do it."

At Rice, Kennedy stressed that humanity's charge into space is inexorable, and that the world would be better off with the United States leading the way.

"For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace," the president told 40,000 people in Rice's football stadium that day. "We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding."

Kennedy viewed winning the space race as key to keeping the United States ahead of the Soviet Union technologically and militarily, as his next words make clear.

"Yet the vows of this nation can only be fulfilled if we in this nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first," he said. "In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation."

In perhaps the speech's most famous passage, Kennedy acknowledged the difficulty of Apollo's quest but argued that a challenge brings out the best in the United States.

"We choose to go to the moon," the president said. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Drawing inspiration today

The federal government did indeed make Apollo a national priority, pouring an estimated $25 billion — well over $100 billion in today's money — into the program. In 1966, NASA funding represented 4.4 percent of the federal budget, compared with less than 0.5 percent last year.

The space race is over now. The Soviet Union no longer exists, and its descendant state, Russia, is now a key spaceflight partner of the United States.

But Kennedy's words of 50 years ago still have the power to inspire today, as celebrations of the speech's anniversary show. And while the president's Cold War rhetoric may not be so effective today, other passages of the speech may get people's space-exploration juices flowing again.

"The question for today is whether the other rationales are enough to sustain support for the [space] program," Logsdon said.

'Witch's Broom' Nebula Shines In Spectacular Photo

 A telescope in Chile has snapped a stunning new image of a speedy nebula that is named after a writing tool, but has a closer resemblance to a witch's broom, scientists say.

Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory took the new view of the Pencil nebula using the La Silla Observatory in Chile's high Atacama Desert. The nebula contains the remains of a colossal supernova explosion centuries ago that blasted gas and dust into interstellar space.

"These glowing filaments were created by the violent death of a star that took place about 11 000 years ago," ESO officials said in an image announcement today (Sept. 12). "The brightest part resembles a pencil; hence the name, but the whole structure looks rather more like a traditional witch's broom."

The Pencil nebula, also known as NGC 2736, is about 800 light-years from Earth and moving at a clip of about 403,891 mph (650,000 kph). It is the brightest part of a vast expanding shell of gas in the constellation Vela (The Sails) that is known as the Vela supernova remnant. The remnant was originally hurtling through space at millions of miles an hour and much brighter, but it has cooled and slowed over time, ESO officials said.

In the new ESO photo, the Pencil nebula's wispy gas filaments appear as ripples of light dotted with brighter knots. The nebula gets its brightness from dense pockets of gas that were struck by the supernova shockwave, ESO officials said. Bright blue colors in the image are hot regions of ionized oxygen, while the duller red portions highlight warm hydrogen, they added.

By studying the different hues of the Pencil nebula, astronomers are able to map the object's temperature ranges. The nebula itself measures about 0.75 light-years across.

One light-year is the distance light travels in a single year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

The Pencil nebula was first discovered in 1835 by astronomer John Herschel, who described the nebula as "an extraordinary long narrow ray of excessively feeble light," ESO officials said. Because of that, it was sometimes referred to as "Herschel's Ray," they added.

Battle-Bruised Skeleton May Be King Richard III

 A human skeleton with a cleaved skull discovered beneath a parking lot in England may belong to King Richard III, researchers announced today (Sept. 12), though they have a long way to go in analyzing the bones to determine the identity.

The researchers note they are not saying they have found King Richard III's remains, but that they are moving into the next phase of their search, from the field to the laboratory.

"[W]e are clearly very excited, but the University now must subject the findings to rigorous analysis. DNA analysis will take up to 12 weeks," Richard Taylor, the director of corporate affairs at the University of Leicester, told reporters this morning, as recorded in a tweet.

The remains were hidden within the choir of a medieval church known as Greyfriars, where the English monarch was thought to be buried. Though the location of this church had been lost, historical records suggested Richard III was buried there upon his death in battle in 1485.

Two skeletons were discovered: a female skeleton that was broken apart at the joints was discovered in what is believed to be the Presbytery of the lost Church; the other skeleton, which appears to be an adult male, was found in the church choir and shows signs of trauma to the skull and back before death, which would be consistent with a battle injury, the researchers said. [See images of the Richard III discoveries]

"A bladed implement appears to have cleaved part of the rear of the skull," according to a University of Leicester statement.

In addition, a barbed metal arrowhead was lodged between the vertebrae of the male skeleton's upper back, Taylor said, adding that the spinal abnormalities suggest the individual had severe scoliosis, though was not a hunchback, as he was portrayed by Shakespeare in the play of the king's name.

Even so, the scoliosis seen in the skeleton would've made the man's right shoulder appear visibly higher than the left one. "This is consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard’s appearance," according to the university statement.

University of Leicester archaeologists began excavating the parking lot of the Leicester City Council building on Aug. 25, in search of the church and the king's remains. Since then, they have turned up the Franciscan friary, a 17th-century garden thought to hold a memorial to the king and various other artifacts.

On Aug. 31, the dig team applied to the Ministry of Justice for permission to begin exhuming the two skeletons, a process that began on Sept. 4.

"We are hopeful that we will recover DNA from the skeleton," University of Leicester geneticist Turi King said at the briefing, as recorded in a tweet by the university.

The king's tales

King Richard III ruled for England two years, from 1483 to 1485, before dying in the Battle of Bosworth Field, part of the War of the Roses, an English civil war between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.

A century later, William Shakespeare penned "Richard III," a play about the tragic king — the last English king to die in battle.

The king seemed to have his own following. "Richard III is a charismatic figure who attracts tremendous interest, partly because he has been so much maligned in past centuries, and partly because he occupies a pivotal place in English history," Philippa Langley, a representative of the Richard III society, said in a statement.

"The continuing interest in Richard means that many fables have grown up around his grave," Langley added. For instance, one far-fetched tale described his bones being thrown into the Soar River. [The Science of Death: 10 Tales from the Crypt]

"Other fables, equally discredited, claimed that his coffin was used as a horse-trough," Langley said.

On Sept. 7, the archaeologists announced they had found medieval paving stones that may belong to a garden built in tribute to the king by Robert Herrick, a mayor of Leicester. The garden, and a mansion, was supposedly built over the church where Richard III was buried. In 1612, Christopher Wren, father of the famous architect, recorded seeing a 3-foot (1-meter) stone pillar in Herrick's garden memorializing the king. The pillar held the inscription: "Here lies the body of Richard III sometime King of England."

The bones will now undergo laboratory analyses, including DNA tests, which will be led by University of Leicester geneticist Turi King. The results could then be compared to those of a direct descendant of Richard's sister, who was uncovered by John Ashdown-Hill, author of "The Last Days of Richard III." From those remains, scientists have mitochondrial DNA, or the DNA inside the cell's energy-making structures, which gets passed down only by mothers.

Europe Space Agency Eyes Manned Fights With China

European astronauts could hitch a ride into orbit aboard Chinese spacecraft before the end of the decade, a senior official at the European Space Agency said Tuesday.

The head of ESA's human spaceflight division said his agency is exploring the possibility of joint space missions with China as part of a wider cooperation with the country. In 2003, China became only the third nation to launch a human into orbit after Russia and the United States.

"I would welcome a European astronaut flying aboard a Chinese spaceship," Thomas Reiter told The Associated Press in an interview on the sidelines of the ILA Berlin Air Show.

The German former astronaut said ESA is planning to slowly deepen cooperation with its Chinese counterpart and could aim for joint missions in "the second half of this decade."

"In fact, some of our astronauts have started Chinese language training," he said.

Despite being a member of the International Space Space program, ESA doesn't have its own means of getting astronauts into orbit but has instead paid for seats aboard Russian and American spacecraft.

Since the end of the U.S. shuttle program ESA has had to rely on Russia to get into space.

Reiter said the 19-nation agency plans to hold a series of meetings with its Chinese counterpart, the China National Space Administration, that will explore closer cooperation in the areas of astronaut training, spacecraft docking and developing life support systems.

"Then I think it's a question of political negotiations at a higher level to see if really a common mission could be achieved," he said.

Eventually, ESA would also like China to become a member of the ISS program if U.S. objections can be overcome.

"As I would welcome a European astronaut flying aboard a Chinese spaceship it would be of course a very, very powerful political sign to have China on board the ISS," said Reiter.

Google Celebrates 'Star Trek' Birthday With Fun Doodle

Set phasers to fun! Forty-six years ago this week the science fiction TV show "Star Trek" warped into existence, and today (Sept. 7) Web search giant Google celebrated the iconic series' birthday with an interactive doodle tribute.

The doodle transforms the crew of "Star Trek's" starship Enterprise into the Google logo (Captain James T. Kirk is an 'O', Spock's the big 'G') and honors some of the TV show's most popular episodes. You can beam Kirk 'O' and a hapless redshirt down to a dangerous planet, fight a Gorn alien and even jump into your trouble with Tribbles … but only if you know where to click.

The brainchild of TV writer/producer Gene Roddenberry, "Star Trek" made its television debut on Sept. 8, 1966. It starred actor William Shatner as Capt.Kirk, with Leonard Nimoy portraying the pointy-eared Vulcan Spock. The series' cast also included DeForest Kelley as Leonard "Bones" McCoy, the ship's doctor; Nichelle Nichols as communications officer Uhura; George Takei as navigator Sulu; and James Doohan as chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott.

Despite an initial three-year run, "Star Trek" has spawned a decades-long franchise that includes four TV spinoffs and 11 feature films, with a 12th film set to hit movie screens in 2013.

Even NASA has felt the Vulcan nerve pinch of Star Trek fandom.

NASA named its first space shuttle Enterprise after the TV show's starship at the urging of die-hard fans, who wrote in to christen the prototype shuttle. Shatner and his fellow Enterprise "crewmates" were onhand at the shuttle's dedication in 1976.

The space shuttle Enterprise was used for landing tests only, but never actually flew in space. It is on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.

When NASA delivered the shuttle Enterprise to New York City in April, Leonard Nimoy, reprising his Spock character's catchphrase, said he hoped the shuttle would "live long and prosper" in its new museum home.

Purdue Football Honoring Neil Armstrong With Helmet Decal

When the Purdue Boilermakers take to the field Saturday (Sept. 8) at Notre Dame, the West Lafayette, Ind., college football team will be sporting a new tribute to one of their school's most famous alumni: Neil Armstrong.

The team's helmets will be decorated with a decal showing the astronaut and inscribed with the years that he lived.

A 1955 Purdue graduate and the first man to walk on the moon, Armstrong died on Aug. 25 at age 82. He will be mourned during a public memorial service on Sept. 13 to be held at National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., before being buried at sea by the U.S. Navy.

"Neil Armstrong is likely the most famous and inspirational alumnus Purdue has ever had, and has been an integral part of campus life from his arrival as a young student in the '50s to today," said Tim Sands, the university's acting president, in an Aug. 25 statement. "He was a humble and private person, but always willing to talk to students. He was passionate about encouraging young men and women to pursue careers in science and engineering."

In 2007, Purdue named its new engineering research and education building after the first moonwalker. An 8-foot tall (2.4-meter) sculpture of the astronaut as a student sits outside the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering.

A year later, Armstrong donated his personal papers to the Purdue's library archives.

After his death, the Boilermakers head coach Danny Hope shared Armstrong's exploits with the team, which inspired 5th-year wide receiver Tommie Thomas to request that the Boilermakers find a way to honor the astronaut.

In response, Purdue came up with a sticker to add to Thomas' and his fellow football players' uniforms. Starting with this weekend's game, and remaining for the rest of the season, the Boilermakers will have the sticker placed above the American flag on the back of their helmets.

The black and white decal shows a spacesuited astronaut in silhouette holding a Purdue flag. The text on the sticker reads, "Armstrong / 1930-2012."

Purdue held its own memorial service on Aug. 27 outside the engineering hall. Students and others placed candles, flags and flowers at the base of the Armstrong statue.

Less Forest, Less Rain: Deforestation Reduces Tropical Rainfall

Deforestation can significantly reduce rainfall in tropical areas and beyond, according to a study published today (Sept. 7) in the journal Nature.

Over a majority of the Earth's tropics, air passing over forested land produces twice as much rain as air passing over areas of sparse vegetation, the study found. Loss of forest cover can decrease levels of rainfall thousands of miles away.

Deforestation has already reduced rainfall in heavily populated areas adjacent to the Amazon and Congo rainforests, according to a statement from England's University of Leeds, whose researchers were part of the study.

If deforestation continues at current rates, rainfall across the Amazon basin could be reduced by more than 20 percent in the next 40 years, the study found.

"Our study implies that deforestation of the Amazon and Congo forests could have catastrophic consequences for the people living thousands of kilometers away in surrounding countries," study author and University of Leeds researcher Dominick Spracklen said in a statement.

For hundreds of years, researchers have debated whether vegetation increases rainfall. It's well-known that plants put moisture back into the air via evapotranspiration, the process by which leaves return water vapor to the atmosphere. But how much rainforestsproduce has been unclear. This is one of the first studies to quantify the rainmaking ability of large forests, according to the release.

The team used newly available NASA satellite observations of rainfall and vegetation, and a computer model that predicts atmospheric wind flow patterns, to explore the impact of the Earth's tropical forests.

Federal Government Ending Wyoming Wolf Protections

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Visitors to Yellowstone National Park on almost any given day can glimpse packs of wolves and hear their iconic howls, thanks to a yearslong effort to revive the species that once neared extinction in the United States.

It's an effort the federal government has determined to be so successful that wolves no longer need special protections to ensure their survival in Wyoming — the state officials chose in the mid-1990s for reintroducing the predator to the Northern Rocky Mountains.

"The wolf population in Wyoming is recovered, and it is appropriate that the responsibility for wolf management be returned to the state," Gov. Matt Mead said Friday after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will end the protections in most of Wyoming and entrust the state with managing their numbers.

The move allows wolves to be shot on sight in most parts of Wyoming while keeping them permanently protected in designated areas like Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, and the Wind River Indian Reservation. The decision quickly sparked promises of legal challenges from environmental groups that argue wolves still need protection to maintain their successful recovery.

"Today's removal of wolves in Wyoming from the endangered species list is a tragic ending to what has otherwise been one of America's greatest wildlife conservation success stories," Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement. "Now we are left with no choice but to pursue legal action to ensure that a healthy, sustainable wolf population remains in Wyoming and across the Northern Rockies for many generations to come."

In announcing the decision, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe acknowledged the opposition it would face and the "emotional reaction to wolf hunting," but said hunting would not be "detrimental to long-term conservation of wolves."

"Quite the contrary, it will support long-term conservation of wolves as it has other predators like mountain lion and grizzly bear and black bear," Ashe said.

North America was once home to as many as 2 million gray wolves, but by the 1930s, fur traders, bounty hunters and government agents had poisoned, trapped and shot them to near extinction in the continental United States. An effort to revive their numbers rose up and centered on starting the recovery in Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming.

Overcoming protests from Wyoming farmers and ranchers who feared wolves would prey on their livestock, wildlife managers transplanted 14 wolves from Canada into Yellowstone in the mid-1990s. The effort exceeded all expectations as wolf numbers quickly multiplied, and Friday's action means Wyoming can now take measures to control their population outside the Greater Yellowstone vicinity.

There are about 270 wolves in Wyoming outside Yellowstone. There are about another 1,100 or so in Montana and Idaho where wolves were delisted earlier and still more in Washington and Oregon.

Wyoming has been chaffing under federal wolf protections for years, with ranchers and hunters complaining that wolves kill too many cattle and other wildlife.

Wyoming's management plan was agreed upon last year by Gov. Matt Mead and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. It calls for the state to maintain at least 10 breeding pairs of wolves and at least 100 individual animals.

The state will classify wolves in the remaining 90 percent of Wyoming as predators, subject to being killed anytime by anyone.

The state will take over management of the wolves under its purview effective Sept. 30. The Wyoming Game Commission has approved wolf hunts starting Oct. 1. The state is prepared to issue unlimited hunting licenses but will call a halt after hunters kill 52 wolves.

Bryce Reece, executive vice president of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association, said ranchers for too long had their hands tied in trying to stop wolves attacking their livestock.

"The reality is my folks aren't in any big rush to get there to try to kill a wolf. They just want the ability to protect their livestock," Reece said. "We are hopeful, by putting some pressure on them, they'll move back into areas where it's less habited and there's less livestock."

NASA Simulates Asteroid Mission For Potential 2025 Flight

HOUSTON — NASA’s plans to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 moved 10 days closer to being a reality this week, even though the target of that mission has yet to be found in space.
The agency’s Research and Technology Studies’ (RATS) 10-day simulated asteroid mission, which ended Wednesday (Aug. 29), involved scientists and flight controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston evaluating new operations and exploration techniques for how astronauts might work above and on the surface of one of the small, rocky, solar system bodies.
 The test used a variety of simulation technologies, including virtual reality and a custom rig that helped recreate the microgravity environment found at an asteroid.

 Potential manned mission
President Barack Obama set the goal for a 2025 asteroid mission during remarks he delivered two years ago at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Earlier this week, he restated that aim during a question and answer session on the website Reddit.com.

“As we continue work with the International Space Station, we are focused on a potential mission to [an] asteroid as a prelude to a manned Mars flight," Obama said. [Photos: President Obama and NASA]

The president’s use of “potential” to describe the asteroid mission may have been in recognition of the scientific and engineering challenges that NASA has already encountered in early planning for such an endeavor.

“Going to an asteroid was a bigger step than I think we thought, because it is a very challenging mission to do,” astronaut Michael Gernhardt told SPACE.com.

In addition to the uncertainty created by changing budgets and still-to-be-decided launch vehicle designs, the space agency has yet to find any candidate asteroids that pass close enough to allow for a roughly 90-day mission.

“The real problem with these near-Earth asteroids is Mother Nature is not really cooperating with us,” John Gruener, a planetary scientist at Johnson Space Center, told SPACE.com. “We haven’t found any that are close enough and are low enough inclination.”

“We would like to find near-Earth asteroids that are in the ecliptic plane and that come in at slow enough velocities so that our [spacecraft] velocities don’t have to be amped up to meet it. But we haven’t found one of those yet,” he said.

Ideally, said Gruener, an infrared telescope could be deployed into an orbit that trails Venus around the sun, providing a better chance at finding and tracking candidate near-Earth asteroids. Once a potential target is found, a robotic precursor mission could offer an up-close look at the asteroid, to better refine the types of tools and hardware needed for a crewed excursion, he said.


Space rock planning

Still, planning for such a mission is moving forward as NASA considers how best to conduct its first crewed flights beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo moon landings ended in 1972.

This week’s simulated mission was centered on NASA’s multi-mission Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV), a modular cabin that can be maneuvered through space using thrusters or on a planetary surface by being mounted to a wheeled chassis. As currently planned and simulated, the SEV would not land on an asteroid but would support spacewalking astronauts exploring the rocky body’s surface.

To simulate this on Earth, NASA has built a mockup of the SEV, which it has placed atop an air-bearing floor that works similar to a very large air hockey table. The vehicle’s “pilots,” who took turns living in the SEV for 3 days and 2 nights during the simulation, could see the asteroid out the cabin’s large forward windows through the use of a video wall that contoured around the vehicle while displaying computer-generated images of the surface they were “flying” around.

Simulating the surface

When it was time for the simulation’s astronaut-stand-ins to practice working on the asteroid itself, the test split into three areas. At the SEV mockup, the participants could exit the vehicle using an integrated suitport, an alternative to an airlock that employs rear-entry spacesuits that form a seal with the vehicle. [NASA Deep-Space Vehicle for Asteroids (Photos)]

Once outside the SEV, they could practice working on the asteroid using one of two simulation methods.

At Johnson Space Center’s virtual reality lab, the participants donned goggles and gloves to then be inserted into the simulated asteroid scene that was projected out the SEV’s windows. Or, they could be suspended in the center’s Active Response Gravity Offload System, or ARGOS, which used a crane and harness to offset their weight while being suspended above boulders, rocks and an SEV cabin.

The simulation extended to Johnson’s nearby Mission Control Center, where communications between the scientists and flight controllers were delayed by 50 seconds in either direction to mimic what astronauts working at an asteroid would experience.


Advanced demonstration

The test also deployed two technology demonstrations. An advanced fuel cell similar to the type used during the 1960‘s Gemini missions was used to power the SEV mockup during the test, and a water processing module converted water generated by the fuel cell into its component hydrogen and oxygen gases to demonstrate in-situ utilization.

The simulation, together with past year’s RATS missions staged in the Arizona desert and work at an underwater laboratory, has given the team confidence that an asteroid mission could be in our near-future.

“I am feeling very comfortable that our desert work, this sim, and then NEEMO 16, which we just completed in June where we actually built an underwater asteroid ... [is giving us] a pretty darn clear idea on how we can do this mission, and we have that knowledge years and years before we are going to go there,” Gernhardt said.

Paleo-Artists Breathe Life, And Color, Into Dinosaurs

 Dinosaurs, the mystical and often fierce giants that once roamed planet Earth, seem to come alive in the minds of many a child. It was this imagination that led one young dino enthusiast to attempt to bring these paleo-beasts to life through his science-based illustrations.

Steve White, a British comic books editor and paleoartist, has been drawing dinosaurs since he was young. This "childhood fixation," as he calls it, never left him. The latest manifestation is his new book, "Dinosaur Art: The World's Greatest Paleoart" (Titan Books, Sept. 2012). LiveScience caught up with White to find out what drives him and the amazing artists portrayed in the book, some of whom are also scientists, as well as what he sees as the future of drawing dinosaurs and ancient mammals.

LiveScience: Why did you decide to put together this book? And what kind of story are you trying to tell?

Steve White: The idea for the book was spawned from seeing so many collections of natural history art that never included paleoart. To be honest, I find a lot of natural history illustration something of a cheat — it's essentially the artist using whatever medium they choose to transfer a photo into art. Much of it is also very dull — essentially still life.

I had come to conclude that a great many paleoartists were as good if not better than their 'modern' contemporaries, but the only time you got to see their work was in popular dinosaur books or academic paleontology tomes. I really wanted to do something that highlighted them as artists and gave them an opportunity to discuss their own methods and styles, whilst producing something beautiful enough to attract the passing fancy of someone who just loved good art.

LS: How did you get into paleoart, and what was your first drawing/piece of artwork?

White: I've drawn dinosaurs since I was small child and even been lucky enough to make a living at it, at least for a while. My first efforts (as I recall) were copies of simple black-and-white drawings that were done as part of a timeline in the appendices of an animal encyclopedia illustrating the evolution of life. They were pretty much my introduction to dinosaurs — and drawing. From then on, I developed one of those childhood fixations — which has never actually left me. I suspect the same is true of many paleoartists ...

LS: Why did you not include more of your work in the book?

White: I guess it would have felt a little self-serving. The only reason I could in all good conscience have done would to have proved to casual readers I wasn't some yahoo playing dinosaur artist! But, no, it was just a judgment call on my part, even though many of my friends and colleagues here at Titan thought I should have included more.

LS: You mention that Robert Bakker and Gregory Paul transformed dinosaur paleontology and reconstruction, calling it a Dinosaur Renaissance. What did you mean?

White: To me, Bakker and Paul were the "Renaissance Men." Bakker was a student of famous paleontologist John Ostrom who, in a 1969 monograph on a small predatory dinosaur named Deinonychus, implied that maybe dinosaurs were not as trenchant dogma at the time perceived them; slow, dimmed-witted, cold-blooded monoliths to failure, lumbering toward the sunset of extinction. He saw in Deinonychus an advanced, agile killer with some very sophisticated features. He also saw a clear link between these dinosaurs to birds. Bakker then produced a whole series of papers that shock the pillars of dinosaur heaven, and in doing so triggered a cascade effect in research that became known as the "Dinosaur Renaissance;" he suggested that dinosaurs were warm-blooded organisms far closer in anatomical style to birds and mammals than to reptiles (this is, I should point out, not to say they are closely related to mammals!).

As he was also a pretty dab hand with a pencil he produced a slew of wonderful drawings showing them as active, dynamic, colorful creatures — living creatures. From my own personal perspective it was seeing these for the first time, in about 1977, that really reignited my passion for dinosaurs, which had been on the wane somewhat at this point, losing out to Star Wars and Jaws. [Image Gallery: Dinosaurs That Learned to Fly]

I remember first seeing Greg Paul art in a feature he illustrated in, I think, Scientific American; lovely full-color art but once again, showing the dinosaurs as animals in the truest sense; they looked plausible. You could imagine these animals being alive. You have no idea of the significance of this. Up until then, the great paleoartists had been just that — artists. While many of the "greats" such as Charles R. Knight are still venerated, their dinosaurs are seen as "quaint;" their prehistoric mammals have weathered the test of time far more effectively. Before the Renaissance, there was no real effort to get to grips with dinosaur anatomy, biology or ecology, and the art suffered accordingly (not the fault of the artists, I might add; dinosaur research at this time was in a sort of stasis, and the view of them as "great reptiles" had really taken hold). Bakker and Paul were really the first two to dismantle dinosaurs down to the nuts and bolts, then use that knowledge to breathe life into them. This was of course aided by the fact they are both superb artists.

LS: What makes a successful piece of dinosaur art, or other paleoart?

White: Hmmm… I guess it's just making the subject matter look believable. Not every dinosaur lived in a jungle in the shadow of an erupting volcano, with a Pteranodon soaring overhead. This tends to be the default setting in the public eye (in my humble opinion anyway). The most successful illustrations are those that take on the environment as a whole. It's not just making the animal look anatomical accurate; it's about making it look part of the ecology that works it. The trees have to be right. What kind of habitat did it live in? What sort of undergrowth was there? What other non-dinosaurian animals lived alongside it? All this combines to make a plausible whole. You're doing the prehistoric version of Constable's The Hay Wain.

LS: That said, what are some of your favorite pieces of artwork in the book? Why do these stand out?

White: Hehe. Loaded question... "I love them all..." he says, nervously. There are a couple that really do stand out for me. Doug Henderson has always been one of [my] favorite paleoartists; he has been a major influence on my own work. There was one piece that really stood out, which we ended up using to open his section; that of Elasmosaurs, long-neck marine reptiles, caught in the curl of a wave with sun behind them, while a flight of Pteranodons pass overhead. Just such an innovative idea so beautifully executed. The other was by John Conway; a pair of small predatory dinosaurs called Troodon standing very much in the shadow of a magnificent Magnolia bush. The colors were so striking, so gorgeous. And such an unusual idea. [Album: Troodon Dads Care for Young]

LS: Who knew a paleoartist painted album covers for Motley Crue and other heavy metal bands?! Did you learn anything else surprising from your interviews with the artists?

White: I learnt an awful lot. Doug Henderson is an amazing landscape photographer (we included a couple of his images but there's a book in his photos alone!). It was also interesting to contrast and compare reconstructions of the same animal by the different artists, and look at the varying approaches they took to the same problem — what did the animal look like in the flesh. Similarly, the very broad approach to the testy issue of transiting from traditional mediums to The Computer. This has been a momentous time in paleoart as many established artists make the switch, while you have a whole new generation, who have grown up computer-literate, are on the rise. One look through DeviantArt and you can see the future right there.

LS: For those who may want to try their hand at dino art, what's the behind-the-scenes knowledge you need to do it right?

White: Paleoartist Luis Rey once told me that Bob Bakker said to him, "No one should be drawing dinosaurs until they'd dissected a chicken and an alligator." I think many artists would be hard-pressed to find enough alligators for the purpose but I guess, in Bakker's view, anatomy is very important. Paleoartists don't have the benefit of vast selections of photographs — or even the living subjects — to illustrate their subjects like Natural History artists. It's far more theoretical but that doesn't mean you should skimp on the pate and not do your research. But anatomy is really just one aspect; as I alluded to before, it's about the broader picture, so to speak; environment, flora, fauna, ecology. It's not just about constructing the animal; it's about constructing the entire world.

New Geranium Gives Allergy Sufferers Nothing To Sniff About

A new type of geranium, genetically engineered to be long-lived and lack pollen, offers the promise of sneeze-free plants for allergy sufferers.

Researchers in Spain have used a genetically modified bacterium to "infect" geraniums, creating plants that are not able to spread allergens nor reproduce with wild plants — a handy modification to prevent so-called "transgenic" plants from contaminating natural stock, said study researcher Luis Cañas, a scientist at the Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (IBMCP) in Spain.

"These biotechnological approaches could be used in other ornamental or crop species," Cañas told LiveScience.

The researchers chose to modify Pelargonium plants, flowering shrubs known colloquially as geraniums or storkbills. These plants have long been selectively bred for traits such as colorful flowers, but Cañas and his colleagues wanted to bestow long life on the plants. They also wanted to make them sterile, removing their ability to produce pollen.

"The lack of pollen not only is great for hay fever sufferers, but also prevents accidental release of the transgenes into the environment," Cañas said.

To do so, the researchers genetically altered Agrobacterium tumefaciens, the bacteria that causes the plant ailment crown gall disease, to carry a modified gene that would increase the production of the plant hormone cytokinin, which has an anti-aging effect on plant cells. They modified another gene that would interfere with the production of pollen and anthers, the little round lobes that hold the pollen on the flower.

The bacteria carried these modified genes into the Pelargonium cells, changing their DNA. The researchers then grew new plants from these modified plant cells. The researchers detail the process Friday (Aug. 31) in the journal BMC Plant Biology.

The result was small-leaved geraniums with more vibrant — and longer-lived — flowers than usual. These allergy-free geraniums aren't yet available at a greenhouse near you (as genetically modified organisms, they will have to go through a regulatory approval process), Cañas said, but the idea is that they will be someday.

"The overall goal of our work is to delay the senescence [aging] process and to produce long-lived plants, which could have commercial interest both for producers and consumers of ornamental plants," Cañas said.

Cooling Glove 'Better than Steroids' Lends Athletes A Hand

A cooling glove resembling a high-tech oven mitt has proven it can boost sports performance to levels beyond steroid users' wildest dreams — to the point where college and professional teams have already begun adopting the technology for their athletes.

The plastic glove cools a network of veins in human palms that typically act as radiators to expel heat from the body, according to Stanford University News. Such cooling appears to practically erase muscle fatigue regardless of the exercises done — pull-ups, bench presses, running or cycling.

"Equal to or substantially better than steroids … and it's not illegal," said Dennis Grahn, a biologist at Stanford University and co-inventor of the cooling glove.

The glove's airtight seal allows it to create a slight vacuum that permits the veins to expand and draw in more blood for rapid cooling through circulated water in the glove lining. Such technology allows exercisers to enjoy huge gains in recovery without evidence of bodily damage from overworking the muscles.

College athletic programs such as Stanford's football and track and field teams have already begun using versions of the glove. Not to be outdone, professional teams such as the San Francisco 49ers, the Oakland Raiders and Manchester United soccer club have also followed suit.


Body temperature is crucial because too much heat can force muscle cells to shut down lest they end up self-destructing. The cooling glove acts by quickly returning the muscle cells to their original active state.

Grahn first stumbled upon the unusual sports technology with H. Craig Heller, fellow Stanford biologist, when they tried to answer a longstanding mystery — how black bears are able to cool themselves with all that fur.

The biologists discovered that bears and other furry animals have hairless patches of skin with networks of veins lurking close to the surface. Those special veins, called AVAs (arteriovenous anastomoses), appear to be designed specifically for regulating core body temperature.

Bears have such natural radiators on their feet pads and the tips of their noses. Dogs have them in their tongues, rabbits have them in their ears, and rats have them in their tails.

The technological shortcutting of the body's natural muscle fatigue could also help patients in medical scenarios, or possibly help out soldiers as part of futuristic combat gear. But it seems almost certain that many more professional athletes — including Olympic champions — will turn to the device for a boost that's better than illegal drugs.

NASA Launches Twin Satellites To Radiation Belts

Twin satellites rocketed into orbit Thursday on a quest to explore Earth's treacherous radiation belts and protect the planet from solar outbursts.
NASA launched the science probes before dawn, sending them skyward aboard an unmanned rocket.
"They're now at home in the Van Allen belts where they belong," said Nicola Fox, the deputy project scientist for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
It's the first time two spacecraft are flying in tandem amid the punishing radiation belts of Earth, brimming with highly charged particles capable of wrecking satellites.

These new satellites — shielded with thick aluminum — are designed to withstand an onslaught of cosmic rays for the next two years.

"We're going to a place that other missions try to avoid and we need to live there for two years. That's one of our biggest challenges," said Richard Fitzgerald, project manager for Johns Hopkins.

Fitzgerald wore a black tuxedo for the big event, "my good-luck tux." It's the same suit he wore for the launch of another set of twin science satellites that still are going strong after 10 years. "I'm hoping for the same" with these Radiation Belt Storm Probes, he said.

The Johns Hopkins lab built the radiation belt probes for NASA, and is operating them from Maryland following a week of launch delays.

Scientists expect the $686 million mission to shed light on how the sun affects the Van Allen radiation belts, named after the astrophysicist who discovered them a half-century ago.

Earth's two doughnut-shaped radiation belts stretch thousands of miles into space; these inner and outer belts are full of high-energy particles from the sun and elsewhere in the cosmos, trapped by Earth's magnetic field.

Normally, the belts remain well above the International Space Station and low-flying satellites. But the belts can expand during solar storms right into the paths of orbiting spacecraft. If severe enough, the storms can cripple satellites and endanger astronauts, and disrupt power and communications on the ground.

The goal of this mission is to improve space weather forecasting.

"The Earth responds to what's coming from the sun, so we say, 'If the sun sneezes, the Earth catches a cold,' " said Nicola Fox, deputy project scientist for Johns Hopkins. The symptoms vary widely and need to be better understood, she said.

Science instruments aboard the nearly identical spacecraft will measure the high-energy particles coursing through the radiation belts and numbering in the trillions.

The satellites will traverse both the inner and outer belts, flying as close as 300 miles to Earth and as far away as almost 20,000 miles, and occasionally lapping one another. At times, the probes will be 100 miles apart, at other times 24,000 miles apart, or three of Earth's diameters.

Fox said the beauty of having two satellites is that scientists will see whether energy disturbances affect just one or both, allowing for measurements over space as well as time.

Earth is hardly alone in this curious setup.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune also have magnetic fields and radiation belts. While the processes are understood, mysteries abound. Fox likens it to making a cake: "You know all the ingredients but you're not quite sure of the proportions of each piece in each given storm."

Compared with the simple Geiger counter on America's first satellite Explorer 1, which uncovered the radiation belts, these two new 1,400-pound probes contain the latest in microelectronics. Each satellite has eight science instruments.

"This is a phenomenal set of instruments," said University of Iowa physicist Craig Kletzing, a principal investigator. "This is the best that's ever been flown in the radiation belts, and we'll make tremendous advances."

The University of Iowa is where James Van Allen spent his famed career. His 1958 discovery of the radiation belts are said to be the first scientific discovery of the Space Age.

Sarah Van Allen, his daughter, was at the mission control center in Laurel, Md., for Thursday's launch.

For now, these newest satellites are called A and B. After a two-month checkout, NASA plans to give them real names.

Perhaps Van and Allen? That's what Fox calls them "because they're close to my heart."

Van Allen was 91 and dying when the Radiation Belt Storm Probes won approval in 2006. How would the late Van Allen feel about the endeavor?

"Very pumped up," Kletzing said.

It took NASA three tries to launch the spacecraft. Last week's attempts were thwarted by trouble with a tracking beacon on the Atlas V rocket and then stormy weather. NASA opted to wait until the passage of Hurricane Isaac before trying again.

Mars Rover Tracks Akin To Neil Armstrong's Moon Bootprints, Scientist Says

NASA's newest Mars rover Curiosity is making tracks on the Red Planet that call to mind the groundbreaking footprints left on the moon by Neil Armstrong more than 40 years ago, a rover scientist said today (Aug. 27).

Neil Armstong, who became the first person to walk on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, died Saturday (Aug. 25) at the age of 82. He and his Apollo 11 crewmate, Buzz Aldrin, left the first human imprints on the moon in the form of bootprints indented into the lunar dust everywhere they walked (or hopped, since the moon has one-sixth Earth's gravity).

Now, one of NASA's latest endeavors, the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, is making a similar impression on another planetary body. The rover landed on Mars Aug. 5 (PDT) and made its first test drive on Aug. 22.

"An iconic image of the mission" shows "four scour marks with wheel tracks," Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said today during a news briefing. He compared that photo to images of the footprints left by Armstrong on the moon. "I think instead of a human, it's a robot pretty much doing the same thing."

Grotzinger was asked by a journalist whether the Curiosity mission bore any resemblance to the Apollo 11 journey taken by Armstrong, along with Aldrin and the mission's Command Module pilot Michael Collins.

"The analogy is a terrific one," Grotzinger replied.

Curiosity, a car-size rover that cost $2.5 billion to build and operate, is beginning a two-year mission to explore Mars' Gale Crater for hints that the Red Planet may have ever been habitable to microbial life. The project is NASA's most audacious robotic mission to another world — just as ambitious, in some ways — as the Apollo flight that put Armstrong on the moon.

Postcards From Mars Show Rover's Key Science Targets

NASA on Monday showed off the first high-resolution, color portrait images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity, detailing a mound of layered rock where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical ingredients of life on the Red Planet.

The stunning images reveal distinct tiers near the base of the 3-mile- (5-km-)tall mountain that rises from the floor of the vast, ancient impact basin known as Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on August 6 to begin its two-year mission.

Scientists estimate it will be a year before the six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover, about the size of a small car, physically reaches the layers of interest at the foot of the mountain, 6.2 miles away from the landing site.

From earlier orbital imagery, the layers appear to contain clays and other hydrated minerals that form in the presence of water.

While previous missions to Mars have uncovered strong evidence for vast amounts of water flowing over its surface in the past, Curiosity was dispatched to hunt for organic materials and other chemistry considered necessary for microbial life to evolve.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, NASA's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes to Mars, is the first to bring all the tools of a state-of-the-art geochemistry laboratory to the surface of a distant planet.

But the latest images from Curiosity, taken at a distance from its primary target of exploration, already have given scientists a new view of the formation's structure.

The layers above where scientists expect to find hydrated minerals show sharp tilts, offering a strong hint of dramatic changes in Gale Crater, located in the planet's southern hemisphere near its equator.

SLANTED LAYERS EXPOSED

Mount Sharp, the name given to the towering formation at the center of the crater, is believed to be the remains of sediment that once completely filled the 96-mile- (154-km-) wide basin.

"This is a spectacular feature that we're seeing very early," project scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology, told reporters on Monday. "We can sense that there is a big change on Mount Sharp."

The higher layers are steeply slanted relative to the layers of underlying rock, the reverse of similar features found in Earth's Grand Canyon.

"The layers are tilted in the Grand Canyon due to plate tectonics, so it's typical to see older layers be more deformed and more rotated than the ones above them," Grotzinger said. "In this case, you have flat-line layers on Mars overlaid by tilted layers. The science team, of course, is deliberating over what this means."

He added: "This thing just kind of jumped out at us as being something very different from what we ever expected."

Absent plate tectonics, the most likely explanation for the angled layers has to do with the physical manner in which they were built up, such as being deposited by wind or by water.

"On Earth, there's a whole host of mechanisms that can generate inclined strata," Grotzinger said. "Probably we're going to have to drive up there to see what those strata are made of."

Also Monday, NASA said it used the rover to broadcast a message of congratulations to the Curiosity team from NASA chief Charles Bolden, a demonstration of the high bandwidth available through a pair of U.S. science satellites orbiting Mars.

"This is the first time that we've had a human voice transmitted back from another planet" beyond the moon, said Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for NASA's Mars missions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We aren't quite yet at the point where we actually have a human present on the surface of Mars ... it is a small step," Edwards said.

In Arctic, Greenpeace Picks New Fight With Old Foe

Global warming has ignited a rush to exploit Arctic resources — and Greenpeace is determined to thwart that stampede.
Employing the same daredevil tactics it has used against nuclear testing or commercial whaling, the environmental group is now dead-set on preventing oil companies from profiting from global warming by drilling for oil near the Arctic's shrinking ice cap.
The campaign took off in May 2010, when oil was still gushing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico. At the time, Greenpeace was startled by reports that a small Scottish energy firm was proceeding with plans to drill for oil and gas in iceberg-laden waters off western Greenland.
"It felt slightly surreal," recalled Ben Ayliffe, now the head of Greenpeace's campaign against oil drilling the Arctic. "After what happened in the Gulf of Mexico, how can anyone respond to that by going to drill in similar depths in a place called Iceberg Alley?"
Greenpeace quickly arranged to get a ship to Greenland, where four activists attached themselves to a drilling rig for two days until a storm forced them to abandon the protest.
That stunt, a similar one in 2011 off Greenland and protests this month at an oil rig off northwest Russia are at the core of what Greenpeace calls "one of the defining environmental battles of our age."
"Polar work feels like it's going back to the early campaigns: simple message, people get it and the lines are very clearly drawn," Ayliffe said.
From a publicity standpoint, the campaign has been successful: Greenpeace officials say since June, 1.6 million people have signed the group's online petition urging world leaders to declare the Arctic a global sanctuary, off limits to oil exploration and industrial fishing. Dozens of celebrities, including Robert Redford, Paul McCartney and Penelope Cruz have announced their support, according to Greenpeace activist Sarah North.
"I have never experienced engaging famous people at this kind of rate and with such ease in a campaign issue," said North, a 15-year veteran at Greenpeace.
The impact on the oil industry, however, is unclear. The Arctic is believed to hold up to a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves. Despite difficult operating conditions and high costs, the payback for Shell, Gazprom, Statoil and other companies searching for commercial quantities of hydrocarbons could be huge.
"It probably sounds a bit cynical, but if they invest billions of dollars it's not likely they will give it up just because somebody is attacking their oil rig," said Mikhail Babenko, an oil and gas expert at the World Wildlife Fund's Global Arctic Program.
Unlike Greenpeace, WWF isn't seeking a complete ban on drilling in the Arctic but wants to make sure the most vulnerable areas are protected.
"We want to be part of this discussion," Babenko said. "We don't want to stimulate oil and gas development, but if we follow (Greenpeace's) approach we will be simply out of the game."
Greenpeace and other environmental groups say an oil spill in the Arctic could cause irreparable damage to wildlife and marine ecosystems.
Fears that the oil industry is ill-prepared to operate in the hostile conditions of the high north were reinforced last December when a floating oil rig capsized off eastern Russia, killing more than 50 workers. While that accident happened outside the Arctic region, it underscored the challenges of drilling further north, where ice ridges are meters (yards) deep and storms are frequent.
Oil industry officials say they are taking the necessary precautions to conduct safe operations in the Arctic.
Cairn Energy, the Scottish company whose platforms off Greenland were targeted by Greenpeace protests in 2010 and 2011, isn't drilling there this year. By all accounts, that has nothing to do with Greenpeace but to the fact that the initial drilling was unsuccessful.
Asked what, if any, impact the Greenpeace actions had on the company's future plans for Greenland, Cairn spokeswoman Linda Bain referred to its second-quarter report, which doesn't say anything about Greenpeace.
Shell, which has also come into Greenpeace's cross-hairs for plans to drill off Alaska, also refused to discuss the group. Still, there's no doubt that Shell takes Greenpeace's Arctic campaign seriously.
In March, Shell won an injunction by a U.S. judge ordering Greenpeace to stay 1 kilometer (.6 miles) away from its drilling rigs in U.S. territorial waters.
A month earlier, New Zealand actress Lucy Lawless of the TV series "Xena: Warrior Princess" and six other Greenpeace activists had climbed aboard one of the drilling rigs before it left for Alaska. They later pleaded guilty to trespass charges and are awaiting sentencing.
Greenpeace activists also climbed aboard icebreakers contracted by Shell as they left the Baltic Sea. And the Greenpeace ship "Esperanza" is now shadowing Shell's drilling vessels as they head north to bore exploratory wells in Alaska's Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
"We will follow the oil industry into the Arctic," Ayliffe said. "This is such an important campaign. We're not going to let them off the hook that easily."
Founded in 1971, Greenpeace initially focused on nuclear testing. Its first Rainbow Warrior ship was sunk in New Zealand's Auckland harbor before it set out to protest French nuclear testing at Muroroa Atoll. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira drowned.
The group claims its actions helped bring about the nuclear test ban treaty as well as a ban on dumping toxic chemicals into the ocean. It also takes credit for forcing Apple and other major companies to become more ecologically responsible.
In the 1990s, Greenpeace campaigned for years to persuade oil companies to bring disused offshore installations to land for recycling, instead of dumping them in the ocean.
The Arctic campaign is part of the group's overarching focus on climate change.
On Friday, six Greenpeace activists, including executive director Kumi Naidoo, spent several hours hanging off the side of the Prirazlomnaya platform in Russia's Pechora Sea, attached to the rig's mooring lines. Three days later, more than a dozen activists intercepted a ship carrying Russian oil workers to the platform and chained themselves to its anchor.
While Greenpeace is sometimes accused of being "alarmist," environment and climate activists in general applaud the group for calling attention to global warming issues. Their activities don't always resonate well, however, with some of the indigenous communities in the Arctic.
The Inuit seal hunters of Greenland, for example, blame Greenpeace campaigns against seal hunting for nearly wiping out the demand for seal skins, a key part of their income.
Ove Karl Berthelsen, Greenland's minister for oil and minerals, said he was skeptical of Greenpeace's claims to be acting in defense of indigenous communities.
"People here see through it," Berthelsen said. "Their star is not very high up here."

Antarctic Methane Could Worsen Global Warming - Scientists

Large volumes of the greenhouse gas methane could have been produced under the Antarctic Ice Sheet over millions of years, which could add to global warming if released into the atmosphere by a thaw, a study said on Wednesday.
Scientists from the universities of Bristol, Utrecht, California and Alberta simulated the accumulation of methane in Antarctic sedimentary basins using models and calculations.
They found it was likely there were micro-organisms there that would have been able to convert the ice sheet's large deposits of organic carbon into the potent gas.
If present, methane would most likely be trapped under the ice.
But it could be released into the atmosphere as rising global temperatures melt the ice sheet, fuelling even more global warming, the scientists said in the paper published in the journal Nature.
"The Antarctic Ice Sheet could constitute a previously neglected component of the global methane hydrate inventory although significant uncertainty exists," the scientists said.
Methane stays in the atmosphere for up to 15 years. Levels have been on the rise over the past few years, following a period of stability since 1998.
The gas is normally trapped as "methane hydrate" in sediments under a seabed. Methane hydrate is a form of water ice containing a large amount of methane which is usually stable.
As temperatures rise, the hydrate breaks down and methane is released from the sea bed, mostly dissolving into the seawater.
But if trapped methane broke sea surfaces and escaped into the atmosphere, it would intensify global warming.
Scientists have already identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane is bubbling into the atmosphere but the potential for methane formation under the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been less well studied.
Conditions under the Antarctic Ice Sheet seem capable of producing methane as the water is oxygen-depleted, hosts micro-organisms and contains significant reservoirs of organic carbon, Wednesday's study said.
"We calculate that the sub-Antarctic hydrate inventory could be of the same order of magnitude as that of recent estimates made for Arctic permafrost."
In 2008, American and Russian experts estimated that 0.5 megatonnes of methane are released per year and at least 1,400 gigatonnes of carbon is trapped as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic permafrost.
But up to 50 gigatonnes of hydrate storage could be released at any time, which would increase the methane content of the Earth's atmosphere by a factor of 12, they warned.
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