Posted on 11/17/2010 11:44:54 AM PST by LibWhacker
After 16 years and $1.5 billion of other peoples money, it is almost showtime for NASA and Sam Ting.
Sitting and being fussed over by technicians in a clean room at the Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a February launching and looking for all the world like a giant corrugated rain barrel is an eight-ton assemblage of magnets, wires, iron, aluminum, silicon and electronics that is one of the most ambitious and complicated experiments ever to set out for space.
The experiment, if it succeeds, could help NASA take a giant step toward answering the question of what the universe is made of. It could also confer scientific glory on both the International Space Station and a celebrated physicist reaching one last time, literally, for the stars. If it fails, it will validate critics who think it a scandal the experiment was ever approved.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
BTTT!
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