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NewsBranson Wants to Help Science Save Earth
Richard Branson has slapped the Virgin name on everything from airlines and space travel to record stores and comic books, and now he wants to add scientific research into global climate change.
The flamboyant British entrepreneur says his fledgling Virgin Galactic enterprise will use the Space Ship Two and White Knight Two (pictured) vehicles to carry research equipment to the highest levels of the atmosphere for a research project planned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The instruments will provide vast quantities of data regarding atmospheric conditions, particularly the level of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, and allow the agency to calibrate measurements made by
satellites.
"We need data and observations to understand how our climate changes," Conrad Lautenbacher, the agency's administrator, said in a statement. "This
affords us a new and unique opportunity to gather samples and
measurements at much higher altitudes than we can usually achieve."
Such a partnership would solve one of the NOAA's biggest challenges with atmospheric research -- it doesn't have anything capable of reaching such lofty altitudes. Nothing in any of the fleets available to the agency can fly higher than 25,000 feet (weather balloons are some help, but their flight paths are erratic), while Virgin Galactic's aircraft will be able to go almost twice that high. NOAA says collaborating with someone capable of reaching that kind of altitude will provide researchers with access to the upper stratosphere, mesosphere
and lower thermosphere. Scientists know relatively little about those regions because they haven't been able to reach them, despite their being critically important to climate science and modeling.
Branson, never one to miss a chance to pat himself on the back, called climate change the planet's most pressing issue when he announced the partnership during the 59th International Astronautical Congress the other day.
"To my mind there is no greater or more immediate challenge than that posed by climate change," he told the delegates by teleconference, according to the Guardian. "It's therefore more than fitting that the very first science to be conducted on board our new vehicles may be specifically directed at increasing our understanding and knowledge of the atmosphere and from there, to better inform our decisions as to the most effective ways of dealing with climate change."
Although the NOAA gets first crack at Branson's spaceships -- and can use them at no cost -- it's by no means an exclusive deal. Virgin Galactic says that it hopes to provide its ships as research platforms for other science organizations in the future, which means we may soon see Branson's vast empire include Virgin Climate Research.
Photo by Virgin Galactic.
Published: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 12:34:09 GMT - Source: Blog.Wired.Com - Read the articleScienceBranson space ships to measure greenhouse gas levels
Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, is to use its space planes to gather scientific data on climate change from the highest reaches of the atmosphere
Published: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:00:00 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the articleEuropeMargaret Thatcher Richard Branson and Judi Dench picked as National Treasures
Lady Thatcher Sir Richard Branson Dame Judi Dench and Sir David Attenborough have all been named National Treasures in a poll organised by The Sunday Telegraph and the British Library.
Published: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:39:36 GMT - Source: Telegraph.Co.Uk - Read the article
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