About a month ago a few friends and I finished the indexing of a quaint little Google  customized experimental search engine that only lists .edu sites and their subdomains.

 This academic search engine known as Yogoe.com has an estimated 2500+ .edu 

 sites, and yes it took a while to complete with most being USA Collages and 

 Universities.

 If you wish to test drive the site it's recommended that you utilize Firefox 3.0+ 

 for best display results, as there seems to be IE7 - IE8 browser problems with site 

 display. The site is very generic as far as presentation is concerned and I'll be

 tweeking it and upgrading it's look in the on going future as it's pretty ordinary

 at the moment.
 

 Here's the link:  Yogoe.com  

 Engineers at NASA are concerned about the Ares 1 first stage. Simulations have 

 shown that with its current design the engine would produce a frequency of about

 25 Hz at liftoff. Due to Ares 1 structural design the concern is that this kinetic 

 oscillation could shake the systems upper stage and the Orion capsule that carries

 the human passengers.

 At worst this has the possibly to create considerable damage that could affect control 

 avionics in the rocket's Instrumentation Unit. This launch system also requires two

 new radical engine development programs. A new five segment Solid Rocket

 Booster (SRB) for the 1st stage with its $3 billion development cost and J-2X Liquid 

 propellant engine for the 2nd stage at an estimated $1.2 billion development cost. 

 It's also more than likely that further funding is needed plus a longer development 

 schedule due to the higher safety risk of new - unproven flight hardware. Recently 

 an alternative launch system to Are's I and V has been proposed by a group of 

 NASA engineers who say that it would be much safer and cheaper to focus on 

 reconfiguring the current space shuttle's matured 'proven' rocket technology.

 Their design proposal requires no major radical new designs as the Ares - Orion

 program calls for. This program known as DIRECT 2.0 calls upon the use of existing

 'spaceware' without the need to radically modify them or develop new and

 untested designs (like Ares.) The DIRECT 2.0 Jupiter Launch Vehicle family can be

 directly configured from the shuttle's 1st stage solid rocket boosters and liquid fuel 

 tank plus the launch engines from the RS-68 (Rocket System 68) developed for the 

 Delta IV.

 If the DIRECT 2.0 Jupiter launch proposal could be utilized then it would allow

 NASA to shift it's funding to it's other science projects and extend it's ability to

 achieve more exploration science/per/dollar than the current projected Ares I and

 V manned lunar program. 

 Jupiter Direct’s backers estimate development costs for both of their models at $13

 billion, compared to an estimated combined cost of $25 billion for the Ares I and V, 

 a saving of  $12 billion tax payers dollars. Given the circumstance's of the global 

 economic crises this should be coincided thinking about!

 For further reading see:  

 Popular Mechanics - Frustrated Engineers Battle with NASA

 Wikipedia - "Jupiter" launch system

 carlos-osorio.com was conceived back in 02/03 by IT specialist Carlos  Osorio,

 an academic from Harvard. This blog has since been updated to  provide the

 most recent information and includes such things as academic  postings, some

 web based topics and some general reviews as well.

 These include interesting websites, reviews on colleges and universities  plus

 other general information about these topic issues. This site is  maintained by

 myself and a few other volunteers to preserve it's original  grace and integrity 

 generated from its original creator, Carlos Osorio.

 A while back I visited a new Tech site called zemanta.com They have developed an 

 application for Image insertion for blogs and websites alike. Its founders include, Aleš Špetič - managing director, Andraž Tori - founder and director and Boštjan Špetič, 

 founder and director of products, all share a common vision. Their mission is to -

 design a new platform for accelerating on-line content production for blogs and

 websites alike through the use of Images and similar content enhancement from

 open soures like wikipedia and others, all with one simple plug in.  If you like the

 sound of this feel free to test drive the plug-in/application at: zemanta.com/demo  

 Gliese 581c nicknamed by some as the planet 'Ymir' has made headlines across the

 media as our closes Earth like world discovered and one of the smallest 'exoplanets' 

 found to date with astrological conditions not to dissimilar to Earth. This planet orbits

 a red dwarf known as Gliese 581 has about 5 x the mass of Earth and is about 1 and  

 ahalf x its size. The planet is also considered a rocky world. European scientists made 

 the discovery with the Eso 3.6m telescope in Chilie.

 Its parent star (Gliese 581) is also one of our closest galatic neighbours at about 20.3 

 light years away in the Libra constellation making it an ideal candidate for the 

 investigation into the possibility of extraterrestrial life. What makes this planet special 

 is not only its size but its distance form the parent star allowing it to sustain liquid 

 water and atmospheric temperatures ranging from 0C to 40C.

 Gliese 581c's full orbital period is about 13 days making it 14 times closer to its star 

 than what our planet Earth is to our sun. Fortunately its sun (Gliese 581c) operating 

 temperature is a lot cooler than ours, a unique feature that allows Gliese 581c to 

 hold ideal conditions to possibly support liquid water or even life. This can only be 

 pure speculation as more observation and climatology modeling would be required

 to actually confirm its surface conditions.

 Recent observations and more in depth modeling techniques about this planets 

 environment determine it to be just outside an 'eco-belt' orbital path, that being a 

 planet orbiting its star at such a distance where it should be possible to sustain liquid

 water, an element critical for life. Even if this planet is considered to be an ice world 

 its sister planet Gliese 581d (8 Earth masses) could be the next likely candidate for an 

 Earth like world as it is closer to the parent star.

 For futher reading see:

 ESO.org - Astronomers Find First Earth-like Planet in Habitable Zone

 NASA - Planet Gliese 581c

 Geochemical News - The Neighbor: Gliese 581c  (Planet Ymir)