2008: The Year In Pictures

InformationWeek , January 3, 2009 07:00 AM
By Cora Nucci

The year was notable for high-profile security breaches -- Obama, McCain, and Palin got hacked -- NASA's big news from Mars, and the comedic gifts of Bill Gates.

NASA Finds Martian Ice

Two Big Science stories gave us remarkable images this year. The first was the discovery in June of ice on the Martian surface and analysis of soil samples retrieved by the craft gave NASA scientists hope that life may have once existed on the planet.

The agency's Mars news was tempered by a setback to its space shuttle program. A revised budget announced in August is delaying the first next-generation Constellation space shuttle launch until 2014, a year later than planned. With Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor expected to retire in 2010, the shuttle program will go four years without a launch. That should give NASA's IT department time to put anti-virus software onto all its laptops.

Particularly Smashing: CERN's Large Hadron Collider

The other big story with great visuals came in the Fall when scientists powered up the world's largest particle accelerator, a massive underground device designed to conduct particle physics experiments. Scientists working in a 17-mile tunnel 300-feet beneath the French/Swiss border hope to use the LHC to test the Big Bang theory and other beliefs about how matter and mass formed. The massive project is expected to produce roughly 15 million GB of data annually for analysis by scientists around the globe.

Reassurances from scientists notwithstanding, the tin-foil hat brigade railed against the search for the so-called "God particle," fearing researchers would form black holes large enough to bring on doomsday.

But we'll have to wait and see if they were right.

Just as scientists began testing the LHC, hackers made a mockery of the European lab's network security. Days later, a liquid helium leak brought research to a halt until at least next spring when repairs are completed.

So how big is this the biggest science device on the planet? Big enough to have its own rap video.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Goes For The Funny

The biggest software company on the planet made some cringe-worthy videos of its own in 2008.

To "reintroduce Microsoft to viewers in a consumer context" it brought in funnyman Jerry Seinfeld and paired him with company co-founder and video veteran Bill Gates in two ads.

The first ad featured Seinfeld and Bill Gates shopping for shoes. The second ad found the two men living with a "regular" family, prompting Dave Methvin to write, "we've finally found something that's much worse than Vista: Vista commercials."

Twittering Terrorists?

Gates fared much better in this star-studded farewll video shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, his last as a fulltime Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) employee:

In October Microsoft previewed its next operating system, Windows 7, seen in this image gallery. The OS is due late next year; a trial version was recently leaked to the Internet.

First Internet Presidency

President-elect Barack Obama made his way to the White House using a combination of television, the Internet, and social media tools such as Facebook to recruit volunteers and supporters, and cement relationships with them.

But the path to Washington was marred by sophisticated cyberattacks on computer systems used by the both the McCain and Obama campaigns over the summer. In September, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin'sYahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Mail account was hacked and selected information from the account was posted online by hackers.

Tweet Me To Your Leader

Obama's use of Facebook was no campaign quirk. The tool spread wildly in popularity despite widespread concerns about privacy. In 2008 Facebook fought spammers and a malicious worm, and a hacker who exposed a privacy hole in the social network -- and private photos of Paris Hilton.

If a recent Army intelligence paper is right, Twitter poses an even bigger security threat. In a number of scenarios the report contemplates how Twitter might be used by terrorists.

Whether social networking tools are a bona fide security threat remains to be seen. "Terrorists can use credit cards and can openers, so they can probably use Twitter too," said Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists. "But that doesn't make it a national security concern."

If 2008 taught us anything, it's that, social networking is pervasive, still spreading, and apparently unstoppable. Even the Phoenix Mars Lander used Twitter to tell 40,000 of its tweeps that it found ice on Mars.

To see a gallery of images from 2008, click here.

NASA's Future May Depend on Collaboration

An independent report addresses tough policy questions faced by the new administration.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/22464/
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

By Brittany Sauser

An astronaut is anchored on the Space Shuttle Endeavor's robotic arm and is preparing to be elevated to the top of the Hubble Space Telescope during a servicing mission in 1993. Credit: NASA

In a report called The Future of Human Spaceflight MIT's Space, Policy, and Society Research group has produced some clear advice for the next President regarding manned space exploration. The report addresses such pressing issues as the retirement of the space shuttle, use of the International Space Station (ISS) and strategies for reaching the moon and Mars.

A key message is the discrepancy between NASA's current funding ($17bn per year) and the ambitions outlined in President Bush's vision for space exploration from 2004. "Trying to do too much with too little is exactly what caused the last two shuttle accidents," says lead author David Mindell, a professor of engineering systems and director of the program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT. But a lack of funding is hardly a new problem for NASA. So perhaps the most significant aspect of the report is its call for greater international collaboration, most notably with China.

The report states that the U.S. needs to reaffirm its international leadership while remaining committed to international partnerships. Specifically, the MIT team says we need to begin engagement with China as this could yield "enormous" benefits for both sides. Cooperation, the report says, "could encourage the Chinese to open their space program and help end speculation about their intentions in space," adding that doing so could help avoid a potentially dangerous space arms race.

The comprehensive study comes at an ideal time for president-elect Barack Obama. Once he takes office in January he'll have just 100 days to determine the fate of the US space program, which is facing its biggest crossroads since the end of the Apollo era in the 1970s. (To complicate matters, the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that NASA administrator Mike Griffin is refusing to cooperate with Obama's transition, although Griffin has denied the accusation.)

The MIT report was written by engineers, policy analysts and even a former astronaut. It starts by defining primary objectives (those that can only be accomplished by having human beings in space and are worthy of the risks and costs) and secondary objectives (benefits that accrue from human presence but do not themselves justify the cost and risk). It also includes some specific recommendations for the new administration.

To start, it says the U.S. should continue flying the Space Shuttle until the ISS is finished, even if that slips somewhat past 2010. Retiring the shuttle after this date will mean relying on international partners, particularly the Russians, for transportation to the ISS but the report says we need to trust their commitment to the project.

Secondly, a "major question facing the new administration" is how to utilize the $100 billion space station. The report suggests that operations should be extended to 2020 and should support the primary objectives of exploration: "research in the physical sciences, life sciences, development of technologies to support moon missions and long duration Mars flights, and as a laboratory for space technology development." Already NASA is testing a water processing system, work-out equipment, and living quarters that will turn the ISS into a six crew vessel instead of a three crew one by May 2009.

For the moon and Mars, the report calls for a strategy that first establishes the size and duration of any U.S. lunar presence and balances this with reaching other destinations such as Mars. Overall, it argues that the policy should be more, not less, ambitious but it also makes a strong call for employing space robotics.

The report will be published in greater depth and detail by the American Academy of Art and Sciences in early 2009. Let's hope the Obama administration reads through the report carefully. Reportedly, the transition team has already "enthusiastically received" it.